w** 


- 


» -»    .     "* 


&fyttttttto# 


GIFT   OF 
A.   P.   Morrison 


THJ 

SPINNERS'  R       K 
FICT 


"THE  DEVIL  SIT  IN  FILON'S  EYES 
AND  LAUGH  —  LAUGH  —  SOME  TIME  HE  GO  AWAY  LIKE 
A  MAN  AT  A  WINDOW,  BUT  HE  COME  AGAIN. 
M'siu,  HE  LIVE  THERE!  " 

FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  E.  ALMOND  WITHROW. 

I 


'ED  B 

BO  TEE  i 

S*  CLUB 


THE 

SPINNERS'  BOOK  OF 
FICTION 

BY 

GERTRUDE  ATHERTON,  MARY  AUSTIN 

GERALDINE  BONNER,  MARY  HALLECK  FOOTE 

ELEANOR  GATES,  JAMES  HOPPER,  JACK  LONDON 

BAILEY  MILLARD,  MIRIAM  MICHELSON,  W.  C.  MORROW 

FRANK  NORRIS,  HENRY  MILNER  RIDEOUT 

CHARLES  WARREN  STODDARD,  ISOBEL  STRONG 

RICHARD  WALTON  TULLY  AND 

HERMAN  WHITAKER 

WITH  A  DEDICATORY  POEM  BY 

GEORGE  STERLING 

COLLECTED  BY  THE 

BOOK  COMMITTEE  OF  THE 

SPINNERS'  CLUB 

ILLUSTRATED  BY 

LILLIE  V.  O'RvAN,  MAYNARO  DIXON 

ALBERTINE  RANDALL  WHEELAN,  MERLE  JOHNSON 

E.  ALMOND  WITHROW  AND  GORDON  Ross 

INITIALS  AND  DECORATIONS  BY 

SPENCER  WRIGHT 


PAUL  ELDER  AND  COMPANY 

SAN  FRANCISCO  AND  NEW  YORK 


Published  in  behalf 

of  The  Spinners'  Benefit  Fund 

Ina  D.  Coolbrith 

First  Beneficiary 


Copyright,  1907 
by  PAUL  ELDER  AND  COMPANY 


GIFT  OF 


TO  INA  D.  COOLBRITH 


WlTH  WILDER  SIGHING  IN  THE  PINE 

THE  WIND  WENT  BY,  AND  SO  I  DREAMED  ; 
AND  IN  THAT  DUSK  OF  SLEEP  IT  SEEMED 

A  CITY  BY  THE  SEA  WAS  MINE. 

No  STATELIER  SPRANG  THE  WALLS  OF  TYRE 

FROM  SEAWARD  CLIFF  OR  STABLE  HILL  ; 

AND  LIGHT  AND  MUSIC  MET  TO  FILL 
THE  SPLENDID  COURTS  OF  HER  DESIRE 

(EXTOLLING  CHORDS  THAT  CRIED  HER  PRAISE, 

AND  GOLDEN  REEDS  WHOSE  MELLOW  MOAN 

WAS  LIKE  AN  OCEAN'S  UNDERTONE 
DYING  AND  LOST  ON  FOREST  WAYS  ). 

BUT  SWEETER  FAR  THAN  ANY  SOUND 
THAT  RANG  OR  RIPPLED  IN  HER  HALLS, 
WAS  ONE  BEYOND  HER  EASTERN  WALLS, 

BY  SUMMER  GARDENS  GIRDLED  ROUND. 

'TWAS  FROM  A  NIGHTINGALE,  AND  OH  ! 

THE  SONG  IT  SANG  HATH  NEVER  WORD  ! 
SWEETER  IT  SEEMED  THAN  LOVE'S,  FIRST-HEARD, 
OR  LUTES  IN  AlDENN  MURMURING  LOW. 

FAINT,  AS  WHEN  DROWSY  WINDS  AWAKE 
A  SISTERHOOD  OF  FAERY  BELLS, 

IT  WON  REPLY  FROM  HIDDEN  DELLS, 

LOYAL  TO  ECHO  FOR  ITS  SAKE.     .     .     . 

I  DREAMT  I  SLEPT,  BUT  CANNOT  SAY 

HOW  MANY  DREAMLAND  SEASONS  FLED, 
NOR  WHAT  HORIZON  OF  THE  DEAD 

GAVE  BACK  MY  DREAM'S  UNCERTAIN  DAY. 

BUT  STILL  BESIDE  THE  TOILING  SEA 

I  LAY,  AND  SAW FOR  WALLS  o'ERGROWN  — 

THE  CITY  THAT  WAS  MINE  HAD  KNOWN 
TIME'S  SURE  AND  ANCIENT  TREACHERY. 

ABOVE  HER  RAMPARTS,  BROAD  AS  TYRE*S, 
THE  GRASSES'  MOUNTING  ARMY  BROKE  ; 

THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  SPRAWLING  OAK 
USURPT  THE  SPLENDOR  OF  HER  FIRES. 

BUT  O'ER  THE  FALLEN  MARBLES  PALE 
I  HEARD,  LIKE  ELFIN  MELODIES 
BLOWN  OVER  FROM  ENCHANTED  SEAS, 
THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  NIGHTINGALE. 

GEORGE  STERLING. 
*  «  • 

111 


M94381 


THE  STORIES 

PAGE 
CONCHA  ARGUELLO,  SISTER  DOMINICA I     xX 

by  Gertrude  Atherton 
THE  FORD  OF  CREVECCEUR 27    v 

by  Mary  Austin 
A  CALIFORNIAN 41 

by  Geraldine  Bon  tier 
GIDEON'S  KNOCK 77 

by  Mary  Halleck  Foote 
A  YELLOW  MAN  AND  A  WHITE 95 

by  Eleanor  Gates 
THE  JUDGMENT  OF  MAN 119    ;x 

by  James  Hopper 

THE  LEAGUE  OF  THE  OLD  MEN 141       v 

by  Jack  London 
DOWN  THE  FLUME  WITH  THE  SNEATH    PIANO 165  v 

by  Bailey  Mi  Hard 
THE  CONTUMACY  OF  SARAH   L.  WALKER 185 

by  Miriam  Michelson 
BREAKING  THROUGH 197 

by  W.  C.  Morrow 
A   LOST  STORY  221 

by  Frank  N  orris 
HANTU 245 

by  Henry  Milner  Rideout 
Miss  JUNO 26l 

by  Charles  Warren  Stoddard 
A   LITTLE  SAVAGE  GENTLEMAN 305 

by  Isobel  Strong 

LOVE  AND  ADVERTISING 323 

by  Richard  Walton  Tully 
THE  TEWANA 345 

by  Herman  Whitaker 


THE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"The  devil  sit  in  Filon's  eyes  and  laugh  —  laugh — some  time 
he  go  away  like  a  man  at  a  window,  but  he  come  again. 

M'siu,  he  live  there!" Frontispiece 

from  a  painting  by  E.  Almond  Withrow 

"She  was  always  very  sweet,  our  Concha,  but  there  never  was 

a  time  when  you  could  take  a  liberty  with  her."    Opp.  Page     16 
from  a  painting  by  gillie  V.  Q'Ryan 

"The  petal  of  a  plum  blossom." Opp.  Page  108 

from  a  painting  by  Albertine  Randall  Wheelan 

"Not  twenty  feet  from  me  Miller  sat  upright  in  his  canoe  as 

if  petrified." Opp.  Page   126 

from  a  painting  by  Merle  Johnson 

"All  their  ways  lead  to  death." Opp.  Page  158 

from  a  painting  by  Maynard  Dixon 

"Dawn  was  flooding  the  east,  and  still  the  boy  lurched  and 

floundered  on  and  on." Opp.  Page  212 

from  a  painting  by  Gordon  Ross 


•  * 
Vll 


WHEREFORE? 

Wherefore  this  book  of  Jiction  by  Califomian  writers  %  And  why  its 
appeal  otherwise  than  that  of  obvious  esthetic  and  literary  qualities  ? 
They  who  read  what  follows  will  know. 

The  fund,  which  the  sale  of  this  book  is  purposed  to  aid,  was 
planned  by  The  Spinners  soon  after  the  eighteenth  of  April,  1906,  and 
ivas  started  with  two  hundred  dollars  from  their  treasury.  To  this, 
Mrs.  Gertrude  Atherton  added  another  two  hundred  dollars.  Several 
women's  clubs  and  private  individuals  also  generously  responded,  so 
that  now  there  is  a  thousand  dollars  to  the  credit  of  the  fund.  A  bond 
has  been  bought  and  the  interest  from  it  will  be  paid  to  Ina  D.  Cool- 
brith,  the  poet,  andjirst  chosen  benejlciary  of  the  fund.  The  Spinners 
feel  assured  that  this  book  will  meet  with  such  a  ready  sale  as  to  make 
possible  the  purchase  of  several  bonds,  and  so  render  the  accruing  in 
terest  a  steady  source  of  aid  to  Miss  Coolbrith. 

All  who  have  read  and  fallen  under  the  charm  of  her  "  Songs  from 
the  Golden  Gate/'  or  felt  the  beauty  and  tenderness  of  the  verses 
When  the  Grass  Shall  Cover  Me,"  will,  without  question,  unite  in 
making  assurance  doubly  sure  "  to  such  end. 

From  the  days  of  the  old  Overland  Monthly,  when  she  worked  side 
by  side  with  Bret  Harte  and  Charles  Warren  Stoddard,  to  the  present 
moment,  Miss  Coolbrith' s  name  has  formed  a  part  of  the  literary  his 
tory  of  San  Francisco. 

The  eighteenth  of  April,  1906,  and  the  night  which  followed  it, 
left  her  bereft  of  all  literary,  and  other,  treasures ;  but  her  poem 
bearing  the  refrain,  "Lost  city  of  my  love  and  my  desire,"  rings  with 
the  old  genius,  and  expresses  the  feeling  of  many  made  desolate  by  the 
destruction  of  the  city  which  held  their  most  cherished  memories. 

When  Miss  Coolbrith  shall  no  longer  need  to  be  a  benejiciary  of 
the  fund,  it  is  intended  that  it  shall  serve  to  aid  some  other  writer, 
artist  or  musician  whose  fortunes  are  at  the  ebb. 

To  the  writers,  artists  and  publishers  who  have  so  heartily  and 
generously  made  this  book  possible,  The  Spinners  return  unmeasured 
thanks. 

San  Francisco,  June  22, 1907. 

ix 


CONCHA 

ARGUELLO,  SISTER 
DOMINICA 


BY 


GERTRUDE  ATHERTON 


DEDICATED  TO  CAROLINA  XIMENO 

Written  for  THE  SPINNERS'  BOOK  OF  FICTION 
All  Rights  Reserved 


CONCHA  ARGUELLO,  SISTER 
DOMINICA 

ISTER  TERESA  had  wept  bitterly  for 
two  days.  The  vanity  for  which  she 
did  penance  whenever  her  madonna 
loveliness,  consummated  by  the  white 
robe  and  veil  of  her  novitiate,  tempted 
her  to  one  of  the  little  mirrors  in  the 
pupil's  dormitory,  was  powerless  to  check  the  blighting 
flow.  There  had  been  moments  when  she  had  argued 
that  her  vanity  had  its  rights,  for  had  it  not  played 
its  part  in  weaning  her  from  the  world  ? — that  wicked 
world  of  San  Francisco,  whose  very  breath,  accom 
panying  her  family  on  their  monthly  visits  to  Benicia, 
made  her  cross  herself  and  pray  that  all  good  girls 
whom  fate  had  stranded  there  should  find  the  peace 
and  shelter  of  Saint  Catherine  of  Siena.  It  was  true 
that  before  Sister  Dominica  toiled  up  Rincon  Hill 
on  that  wonderful  day — here  her  sobs  became  so 
violent  that  Sister  Maria  Sal,  praying  beside  her  with 
a  face  as  swollen  as  her  own,  gave  her  a  sharp  poke 
in  the  ribs,  and  she  pressed  her  hands  to  her  mouth 
lest  she  be  marched  away.  But  her  thoughts  flowed 
on;  she  could  pray  no  more.  Sister  Dominica,  with 
her  romantic  history  and  holy  life,  her  halo  of  fame 
in  the  young  country,  and  her  unconquerable  beauty — 
she  had  never  seen  such  eyelashes,  never,  never! — 

1 


Fiction 


what  was  she  thinking  of  at  such  a  time?  She 
had  never  believed  that  such  divine  radiance  could 
emanate  from  any  mortal;  never  had  dreamed  that 
beauty  and  grace  could  be  so  enhanced  by  a  white 

robe  and  a  black  veil Oh,  well!  Her  mind  was  in 

a  rebellious  mood;  it  had  been  in  leash  too  long. 
And  what  of  it  for  once  in  a  way?  No  ball  dress 
she  had  ever  seen  in  the  gay  disreputable  little  city — 
where  the  good  citizens  hung  the  bad  for  want  of 
law — was  half  as  becoming  as  the  habit  of  the 
Dominican  nun,  and  if  it  played  a  part  in  weaning 
frivolous  girls  from  the  world,  so  much  more  to  the 
credit  of  Rome.  God  knew  she  had  never  regretted 
her  flight  up  the  bays,  and  even  had  it  not  been  for 
the  perfidy  of — she  had  forgotten  his  name;  that 
at  least  was  dead! — she  would  have  realized  her 
vocation  the  moment  Sister  Dominica  sounded  the 
call.  When  the  famous  nun,  with  that  passionate 
humility  all  her  own,  had  implored  her  to  renounce 
the  world,  protested  that  her  vocation  was  written 
in  her  face — she  really  looked  like  a  juvenile  mater 
dolorosa,  particularly  when  she  rolled  up  her  eyes — 
eloquently  demanded  what  alternative  that  hideous 
embryo  of  a  city  could  give  her — that  rude  and  noisy 
city  that  looked  as  if  it  had  been  tossed  together  in 
a  night  after  one  of  its  periodical  fires,  where  the  ill- 
made  sidewalks  tripped  the  unwary  foot,  or  the 
winter  mud  was  like  a  swamp,  where  the  alarm  bell 
summoned  the  Vigilance  Committee  day  and  night 
to  protect  or  avenge,  where  a  coarse  and  impertinent 
set  of  adventurers  stared  at  and  followed  an  inoffen 
sive  nun  who  only  left  the  holy  calm  of  the  convent 
at  the  command  of  the  Bishop  to  rescue  brands  from 


Concha  Arguello,  Sister  Dominica 


the  burning;  then  had  Teresa,  sick  with  the  tragedy 
of  youth,  an  enchanting  vision  of  secluded  paths, 
where  nuns — in  white — walked  with  downcast  eyes 
and  folded  hands;  of  the  daily  ecstasy  of  prayer  in 
the  convent  chapel  misty  with  incense. 

And  in  some  inscrutable  way  Sister  Dominica 
during  that  long  conversation,  while  Mrs.  Grace  and 
her  other  daughters  dispensed  egg-nog  in  the  parlor— 
it  was  New  Year's  Day — had  made  the  young  girl 
a  part  of  her  very  self,  until  Teresa  indulged  the 
fancy  that  without  and  within  she  was  a  replica  of 
that  Concha  Arguello  of  California's  springtime; 
won  her  heart  so  completely  that  she  would  have 
followed  her  not  only  into  the  comfortable  and  in 
comparably  situated  convent  of  the  saint  of  Siena, 
but  barefooted  into  that  wilderness  of  Soledad  where 
the  Indians  still  prayed  for  their  lost  "Beata."  It 
was  just  eight  months  tonight  since  she  had  taken 
her  first  vows,  and  she  had  been  honestly  aware  that 
there  was  no  very  clear  line  of  demarcation  in  her 
fervent  young  mind  between  her  love  of  Sister 
Dominica  and  her  love  of  God.  Tonight,  almost 
prostrate  before  the  coffin  of  the  dead  nun,  she  knew 
that  so  far  at  least  all  the  real  passion  of  her  youth 
had  flowed  in  an  undeflecled  tide  about  the  feet  of 
that  remote  and  exquisite  being  whose  personal 
charm  alone  had  made  a  convent  possible  in  the 
chaos  that  followed  the  discovery  of  gold.  All  the 
novices,  many  of  the  older  nuns,  the  pupils  invar 
iably,  worshipped  Sister  Dominica;  whose  saintli- 
ness  without  austerity  never  chilled  them,  but  whose 
tragic  story  and  the  impression  she  made  of  already 
dwelling  in  a  heaven  of  her  own,  notwithstanding 


°f  Fiction 


her  sweet  and  consistent  humanity,  placed  her  on  a 
pinnacle  where  any  display  of  affection  would  have 
been  unseemly.  Only  once,  after  the  beautiful  cere 
mony  of  taking  the  white  veil  was  over,  and  Teresa's 
senses  were  faint  from  incense  and  hunger,  ecstasy 
and  a  new  and  exquisite  terror,  Sister  Dominica 
had  led  her  to  her  cell  and  kissing  her  lightly  on  the 
brow,  exclaimed  that  she  had  never  been  happier  in 
a  conquest  for  the  Church  against  the  vileness  of  the 
world.  Then  she  had  dropped  the  conventional 
speech  of  her  calling,  and  said  with  an  expression 
that  made  her  look  so  young,  so  curiously  virginal, 
that  the  novice  had  held  her  breath:  "Remember 
that  here  there  is  nothing  to  interrupt  the  life  of  the 
imagination,  nothing  to  change  its  course,  like  the 
thousand  conflicting  currents  that  batter  memory 
and  character  to  pieces  in  the  world.  In  this  mo 
notonous  round  of  duty  and  prayer  the  mind  is  free, 
the  heart  remains  ever  young,  the  soul  unspotted; 

so   that  when "      She   had  paused,  hesitated  a 

moment,  then  abruptly  left  the  room,  and  Teresa  had 
wept  a  torrent  in  her  disappointment  that  this  first 
of  California's  heroines — whose  place  in  history  and 
romance  was  assured — had  not  broken  her  reserve 
and  told  her  all  that  story  of  many  versions.  She  had 
begged  Sister  Maria  Sal — the  sister  of  Luis  Argiiello's 
first  wife — to  tell  it  her,  but  the  old  nun  had  reproved 
her  sharply  for  sinful  curiosity  and  upon  one  occasion 
boxed  her  ears.  But  tonight  she  might  be  in  a  softer 
mood,  and  Teresa  resolved  that  when  the  last  rites  were 
over  she  would  make  her  talk  of  Concha  Argiiello. 
A  few  moments  later  she  was  lifted  to  her  feet  by 
a  shaking  but  still  powerful  arm. 


Concha  Argudlo,  Sister  Dominica 


"Come!"  whispered  Sister  Maria.  "It  is  time  to 
prepare.  The  others  have  gone.  It  is  singular  that 
the  oldest  and  the  youngest  should  have  loved  her 
best.  Ay  !  Dios  de  mi  alma  !  I  never  thought  that 
Concha  Argiiello  would  die.  Grow  old  she  never 
did,  in  spite  of  the  faded  husk.  We  will  look  at  her 
once  more." 

The  dead  nun  in  her  coffin  lay  in  the  little  parlor 
where  she  had  turned  so  many  wavering  souls  from 
fleeting  to  eternal  joys.  Her  features,  wasted  during 
years  of  delicate  health,  seemed  to  regain  some 
thing  of  their  youth  in  the  soft  light  of  the  candles. 
Or  was  it  the  long  black  eyelashes  that  hid  the  hol 
lows  beneath  the  eyes? — or  the  faint  mysterious  al 
most  mocking  smile  ?  Had  the  spirit  in  its  eternal 
youth  paused  in  its  flight  to  stamp  a  last  sharp  impress 
upon  the  prostrate  clay?  Never  had  she  looked  so 
virginal,  and  that  had  been  one  of  the  most  arresting 
qualities  of  her  always  remarkable  appearance;  but 
there  was  something  more  —  Teresa  held  her  breath. 
Somehow,  dead  and  in  her  coffin,  she  looked  less 
saintly  than  in  life ;  although  as  pure  and  sweet,  there 
was  less  of  heavenly  peace  on  those  marble  features 
than  of  some  impassioned  human  hope.  Teresa 
excitedly  whispered  her  unruly  thoughts  to  Sister 
Maria,  but  instead  of  the  expected  reproof  the  old 
nun  lifted  her  shoulders. 

"Perhaps,"  she  said    "Who  knows?" 

It  was  Christmas  eve  and  all  the  inmates  of  the 
convent  paused  in  their  sorrow  to  rejoice  in  the 
happy  portent  of  the  death  and  burial  of  one  whom 
they  loyally  believed  to  be  no  less  entitled  to  beatifi- 

5 


TheSpinnerBook  qf  Fiction 


cation  than  Catherine  herself.  Her  miracles  may 
not  have  been  of  the  irreducible  protoplastic  order, 
but  they  had  been  miracles  to  the  practical  Cali- 
fornian  mind,  notwithstanding,  and  worthy  of  the 
attention  of  consistory  and  Pope.  Moreover,  this 
was  the  season  when  all  the  vivacity  and  gaiety  of 
her  youth  had  revived,  and  she  made  merry,  not 
only  for  the  children  left  at  the  convent  by  their 
nomadic  parents,  but  for  all  the  children  of  the 
town,  whatever  the  faith  of  their  somewhat  anxious 
elders. 

An  hour  after  sundown  they  carried  the  bier  on 
which  her  coffin  rested  into  the  chapel.  It  was  a 
solemn  procession  that  none,  taking  part,  was  likely 
to  forget,  and  stirred  the  young  hearts  at  least  with 
an  ecstatic  desire  for  a  life  as  saintly  as  this  that 
hardly  had  needed  the  crown  of  death. 

Following  the  bier  was  the  cross-bearer,  holding  the 
emblem  so  high  it  was  half  lost  in  the  shadows.  Be 
hind  her  were  the  young  scholars  dressed  in  black, 
then  the  novices  in  their  white  robes  and  veils,  carry 
ing  lighted  tapers  to  symbolize  the  eternal  radiance 
that  awaited  the  pure  in  spirit.  The  nuns  finished 
the  procession  that  wound  its  way  slowly  through 
the  long  ill-lighted  corridors,  chanting  the  litany  of 
the  dead.  From  the  chapel,  at  first  almost  inaudible, 
but  waxing  louder  every  moment,  came  the  same 
solemn  monotonous  chant;  for  the  Bishop  and  his 
assistants  were  already  at  the  altar.  .  .  . 

Teresa,  from  the  organ  loft,  looked  eagerly  down 
upon  the  beautiful  scene,  in  spite  of  the  exaltation 
that  filled  her:  her  artistic  sense  was  the  one  indi 
viduality  she  possessed.  The  chapel  was  aglow  with 

6 


Concha  Arguello,  Sister  Dominica 


the  soft  radiance  of  many  wax  candles.  They  stood 
in  high  candelabra  against  the  somber  drapery  on 
the  walls,  and  there  were  at  least  a  hundred  about 
the  coffin  on  its  high  catafalque  before  the  altar; 
the  Argiiellos  were  as  prodigal  as  of  old.  About  the 
catafalque  was  an  immense  mound  of  roses  from 
the  garden  of  the  convent,  and  palms  and  pampas 
from  the  ranch  of  Santiago  Arguello  in  the  south. 
The  black-robed  scholars  knelt  on  one  side  of  the 
dead,  the  novices  on  the  other,  the  relatives  and 
friends  behind.  But  art  had  perfected  itself  in  the 
gallery  above  the  lower  end  of  the  chapel.  This  also 
was  draped  with  black  which  seemed  to  absorb,  then 
shed  forth  again  the  mystic  brilliance  of  the  candles; 
and  kneeling,  well  apart,  were  the  nuns  in  their 
ivory  white  robes  and  black  veils,  their  banded  soft 
ened  features  as  composed  and  peaceful  as  if  their 
own  reward  had  come. 

The  Bishop  and  the  priests  read  the  Requiem  Mass, 
the  little  organ  pealed  the  De  Projundis  as  if  inspired ; 
and  when  the  imperious  triumphant  music  of  Handel 
followed,  Teresa's  fresh  young  soprano  seemed,  to 
her   excited   imagination,    to   soar   to   the   gates   of 
heaven   itself.     When  she  looked   down   again  the 
lights  were  dim  in  the  incense,  her  senses  swam  in 
the  pungent  odor  of  spices  and  gum.     The  Bishop  | 
was  walking  about  the  catafalque  casting  holy  water  I 
with  a  brush  against  the  coffin  above.     He  walked  ! 
about   a   second   time   swinging   the   heavy   copper  * 
censer,  then  pronounced  the  Requiescat  in  pace,  "dis 
missing,"  as  we  find  inscribed  in  the  convent  records, 
"a  tired  soul  out  of  all  the  storms  of  life  into  the 
divine  tranquillity  of  death." 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


The  bier  was  again  shouldered,  the  procession  re 
formed,  and  marched,  still  with  lighted  tapers  and 
chanting  softly,  out  into  the  cemetery  of  the  con 
vent.  It  was  a  magnificent,  clear  night  and  as  mild 
as  spring.  Below  the  steep  hill  the  little  town  of 
Benicia  celebrated  the  eve  of  Christmas  with  lights 
and  noise.  Beyond,  the  water  sparkled  like  running 
silver  under  the  wide  beams  of  the  moon  poised  just 
above  the  peak  of  Monte  Diablo,  the  old  volcano 
that  towered  high  above  this  romantic  and  beautiful 
country  of  water  and  tule  lands,  steep  hillsides  and 
canons,  rocky  bluffs  overhanging  the  straits.  In 
spite  of  the  faint  discords  that  rose  from  the  town 
and  the  slow  tolling  of  the  convent  bell,  it  was  a 
scene  of  lofty  and  primeval  grandeur,  a  fit  setting 
for  the  last  earthly  scene  of  a  woman  whose  lines 
had  been  cast  in  the  wilderness,  but  yet  had  found 
the  calm  and  the  strength  and  the  peace  of  the  old 
mountain,  with  its  dead  and  buried  fires. 

The  grave  closed,  the  mourners  returned  to  the 
convent,  but  not  in  order.  At  the  door  Teresa  felt 
her  arm  taken  possession  of  by  a  strong  hand  with 
which  she  had  had  more  than  one  disconcerting 
encounter. 

"Let  us  walk,"  said  Sister  Maria  Sal  in  her  harsh 
but  strong  old  voice.  "I  have  permission.  I  must 
talk  of  Concha  tonight  or  I  should  burst.  It  is  not 
for  nothing  one  keeps  silent  for  years  and  years.  I 
at  least  am  still  human.  And  you  loved  her  the  best 
and  have  spoiled  your  pretty  face  with  weeping. 
You  must  not  do  that  again,  for  the  young  love  a 
pretty  nun  and  will  follow  her  into  the  one  true  life 
on  earth  far  sooner  than  an  ugly  old  phiz  like  mine." 

8 


Sister  Maria,  indeed,  retained  not  an  index  of 
the  beauty  with  which  tradition  accredited  her  youth. 
She  was  a  stout  unwieldy  old  woman  with  a  very 
red  face  covered  half  over  with  black  down,  and  in 
the  bright  moonlight  Teresa  could  see  the  three 
long  hairs  that  stood  out  straight  from  a  mole  above 
her  mouth  and  scratched  the  girls  when  she  kissed 
them.  Tonight  her  nose  was  swollen  and  her  eyes 
looked  like  appleseeds.  Teresa  hastily  composed  her 
features  and  registered  a  vow  that  in  her  old  age 
she  would  look  like  Sister  Dominica,  not  like  that. 
She  had  heard  that  Concha,  too,  had  been  frivolous 
in  her  youth,  and  had  not  she  herself  a  tragic  bit  of  a 
story  ?  True,  her  youthful  love-tides  had  turned  be 
times  from  the  grave  beside  the  Mission  Dolores  to 
the  lovely  nun  and  the  God  of  both,  and  she  had 
heard  that  Dona  Concha  had  proved  her  fidelity  to 
a  wonderful  Russian  throughout  many  years  before 
she  took  the  veil.  Perhaps  —  who  knew  ? — her  more 
conformable  pupil  might  have  restored  the  worthless 
to  her  heart  before  he  was  knifed  in  the  full  light  of 
day  on  Montgomery  Street  by  one  from  whom  he 
had  won  more  than  thousands  the  night  before; 
perhaps  have  consoled  herself  with  another  less 
eccentric,  had  not  Sister  Dominica  sought  her  at 
the  right  moment  and  removed  her  from  the  tempta 
tions  of  the  world.  Well,  never  mind,  she  could  at 
least  be  a  good  nun  and  an  amiable  instructor  of 
youth,  and  if  she  never  looked  like  a  living  saint 
she  would  grow  soberer  and  nobler  with  the  years 
and  take  care  that  she  grew  not  stout  and  red. 

For  a  time  Sister  Maria  did  not  speak,  but  walked 
rapidly  and  heavily  up  and  down  the  path,  dragging 

9 


qf  Fiction 


her  companion  with  her  and  staring  out  at  the  beauty 
of  the  night.  But  suddenly  she  slackened  her  pace 
and  burst  into  speech. 

"Ay  yi!  Ay  de  mi!  To  think  that  it  is  nearly 
half  a  century  —  forty-two  years  to  be  precise  —  for 
will  it  not  be  1858  in  one  more  week  ? — since  Rezanov 
sailed  out  through  what  Fremont  has  called  'The 
Golden  Gate'  !  And  forty-one  in  March  since  he 
died  —  not  from  the  fall  of  a  horse,  as  Sir  George 
Simpson  (who  had  not  much  regard  for  the  truth 
anyway,  for  he  gave  a  false  pi6lure  of  our  Concha), 
and  even  Do6lor  Langsdorff,  who  should  have  known 
better,  wrote  it,  but  worn  out,  worn  out,  after  terrible 
hardships,  and  a  fever  that  devoured  him  inch  by 
inch.  And  he  was  so  handsome  when  he  left  us! 
Dios  de  mi  alma  !  never  have  I  seen  a  man  like  that. 
If  I  had  I  should  not  be  here  now,  perhaps,  so  it  is 
as  well.  But  never  was  I  even  engaged,  and  when 
permission  came  from  Madrid  for  the  marriage  of 
my  sister  Rafaella  with  Luis  Argiiello  —  he  was  an 
officer  and  could  not  marry  without  a  special  license 
from  the  King,  and  through  some  strange  oversight 
he  was  six  long  years  getting  it  —  ;  well,  I  lived  with 
them  and  took  care  of  the  children  until  Rafaella — 
Ay  yi !  what  a  good  wife  she  made  him,  for  he  'toed 
the  mark/  as  the  Americans  say  — ;  well,  she  died, 
and  one  of  those  days  he  married  another ;  for  will 
not  men  be  men?  And  Luis  was  a  good  man  in 
spite  of  all,  a  fine  loyal  clever  man,  who  deserves  the 
finest  monument  in  the  cemetery  of  the  Mission 
Dolores  —  as  they  call  it  now.  The  Americans  have 
no  respect  for  anything  and  will  not  say  San  Francisco 
de  Assisi,  for  it  is  too  long  and  they  have  time  for 

10 


Concha  Argudlo,  Sister  Dominica 


nothing  but  the  gold.  Were  it  not  a  sin,  how  I  should 
hate  them,  for  they  have  stolen  our  country  from 
us — but  no,  I  will  not;  and,  to  be  sure,  if  Rezanov  had 
lived  he  would  have  had  it  first,  so  what  difference? 
Luis,  at  least,  was  spared.  He  died  in  1830  —  and 
was  the  first  Governor  of  Alt  a  California  after  Mex 
ico  threw  off  the  yoke  of  Spain.  He  had  power  in  full 
measure  and  went  before  these  upstart  conquerors 
came  to  humble  the  rest  of  us  into  the  dust.  Peace 
to  his  ashes  —  but  perhaps  you  care  nothing  for  this 
dear  brother  of  my  youth,  never  heard  of  him  be 
fore — such  a  giddy  thing  you  were ;  although  at  the  last 
earthquake  the  point  of  his  monument  flew  straight 
into  the  side  of  the  church  and  struck  there,  so  you 
may  have  heard  the  talk  before  they  put  it  back  in 
its  place.  It  is  of  Sister  Dominica  you  think,  but  I 
think  not  only  of  her  but  of  those  old  days — Ay,  Dios 
de  mi!  Who  remembers  that  time  but  a  few  old 
women  like  myself  ? 

"Concha's  father,  Don  Jose  Dario  Argiiello,  was 
Commandante  of  the  Presidio  of  San  Francisco  then; 
and  there  was  nothing  else  to  call  San  Francisco 
but  the  Mission.  Down  at  Yerba  Buena,  where  the 
Americans  flaunt  themselves,  there  was  but  a  Bat 
tery  that  could  not  give  even  a  dance.  But  we  had 
dances  at  the  Presidio;  day  and  night  the  guitar 
tinkled  and  the  fiddles  scraped;  for  what  did  we 
know  of  care,  or  old  age,  or  convents  or  death?  I 
was  many  years  younger  than  Rafaella  and  did  not 
go  to  the  grand  balls,  but  to  the  little  dances,  yes, 
many  and  many.  When  the  Russians  came — it  was 
in  1806 — I  saw  them  every  day,  and  one  night 
danced  with  Rezanov  himself.  He  was  so  gay — 

11 


°f  Fiction 


ay  de  mi !  I  remember  he  swung  me  quite  off  my  feet 
and  made  as  if  he  would  throw  me  in  the  air.  I  was 
angry  that  he  should  treat  me  like  a  baby,  and  then 
he  begged  me  so  humbly  to  forgive  him,  although 
his  eyes  laughed,  that  of  course  I  did.  He  had  come 
down  from  Sitka  to  try  and  arrange  for  a  treaty  with 
the  Spanish  government  that  the  poor  men  in  the 
employ  of  the  Russian-American  Company  might 
have  breadstuffs  to  eat  and  not  die  of  scurvy,  nor 
toil  through  the  long  winter  with  no  flesh  on  their 
bones.  He  brought  a  cargo  with  him  to  exchange 
for  our  corn  and  flour  meanwhile.  We  had  never 
seen  any  one  so  handsome  and  so  grand  and  he 
turned  all  our  heads,  but  he  had  a  hard  time  with 
the  Governor  and  Don  Jose — there  are  no  such 
Calif ornians  now  or  the  Americans  would  never 
have  got  us — and  it  took  all  his  diplomacy  and  all 
the  help  Concha  and  the  priests  could  give  him 
before  he  got  his  way,  for  there  was  a  law  against 
trading  with  foreigners.  It  was  only  when  he  and 
Concha  became  engaged  that  Governor  Arillaga 
gave  in — how  I  pick  up  vulgar  expressions  from  these 
American  pupils,  I  who  should  reform  them!  And 
did  I  not  stand  Ellen  O'Reilley  in  the  corner  yester 
day  for  calling  San  Francisco  'Frisco'  ? — San  Fran- 
cisco  de  Assisi!  But  all  the  saints  have  fled  from 
California. 

"  Where  was  I  ?  Forgive  an  old  woman's  rambling, 
but  I  have  not  told  stories  since  Rafaella's  children 
grew  up,  and  that  was  many  years  ago.  What  do  I 
talk  here?  You  know.  And  I  that  used  to  love  to 
talk.  Ay  yi!  But  no  one  can  say  that  I  am  not  a 
good  nun.  Bishop  Alemany  has  said  it  and  no  one 

12 


Concha  Argudlo,  Sister  Dominica 


knows  better  than  he,  the  holy  man.  But  for  him 
I  might  be  sitting  all  day  on  a  corridor  in  the  south 
sunning  myself  like  an  old  crocodile,  for  we  had 
no  convent  till  he  came  eight  years  ago;  and  perhaps 
but  for  Concha,  whom  I  always  imitated,  I  might 
have  a  dozen  brats  of  my  own,  for  I  was  pretty  and 
had  my  wooers  and  might  have  been  persuaded. 
And  God  knows,  since  I  must  have  the  care  of  chil 
dren,  I  prefer  they  should  be  mothered  by  some  one 
else,  for  then  I  have  always  the  hope  to  be  rid  of  them 
the  sooner.  Well,  well !  I  am  not  a  saint  yet,  and  when 
I  go  to  heaven  I  suppose  Concha  will  still  shake  her 
finger  at  me  with  a  smile.  Not  that  she  was  ever 
self-righteous,  our  Concha.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  Only 
after  that  long  and  terrible  waiting  she  just  naturally 
became  a  saint.  Some  are  made  that  way  and  some 
are  not.  That  is  all. 

"Did  I  tell  you  about  the  two  young  lieutenants 
that  came  with  Baron  Rezanov?  Davidov  and 
Khostov  their  names  were.  Well,  well,  I  shall  tell  all 
tonight.  I  was  but  fourteen,  but  what  will  you? 
Was  I  not,  then,  Spanish  ?  It  was  Davidov.  He 
always  left  the  older  people  to  romp  with  the  chil 
dren,  although  I  think  there  was  a  flame  in  his 
heart  for  Concha.  Perhaps  had  I  been  older — who 
knows?  Do  not  look  at  my  whiskers!  That  was 
forty-two  years  ago.  Well,  I  dreamed  of  the  fair 
kind  young  Russian  for  many  a  night  after  he  left, 
and  when  my  time  came  to  marry  I  would  look  at 
none  of  the  caballeros,  but  nursed  Rafaella's  babies 
and  thought  my  thoughts.  And  then — in  1815  I 
think  it  was — the  good — and  ugly — Dr.  Langsdorff 
sent  Luis  a  copy  of  his  book — he  had  been  surgeon 

13 


TheSpinnerBook  of  Fition 


to  his  excellency — and  alas!  it  told  of  the  terrible 
end  of  both  those  gay  kind  young  men.  They  were 
always  too  fond  of  brandy;  we  knew  that,  but  we 
never — well,  hear  me!  One  night  not  so  many  years 
after  they  sailed  away  from  California,  they  met  Dr. 
Langsdorff  and  another  friend  of  their  American 
days,  Captain  D'Wolf,  by  appointment  in  St.  Peters 
burg  for  a  grand  reunion.  They  were  all  so  happy! 
Perhaps  it  was  that  made  them  too  much  '  celebrate/ 
as  the  Americans  say  in  their  dialect.  Well,  alas! 
they  celebrated  until  four  in  the  morning,  and  then 
my  two  dear  young  Russians — for  I  loved  Khostov 
as  a  sister,  so  devoted  he  was  to  my  friend — well, 
they  started — on  foot — for  home,  and  that  was  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Neva.  They  had  almost  crossed 
the  bridge  when  they  suddenly  took  it  into  their 
heads  that  they  wanted  to  see  their  friends  again, 
and  started  back.  Alas,  in  the  middle  of  the  bridge 
was  a  section  that  opened  to  permit  the  passage  of 
boats  with  tall  masts.  The  night  was  dark  and 
stormy.  The  bridge  was  open.  They  did  not  see 
it.  The  river  was  roaring  and  racing  like  a  flood. 
A  sailor  saw  them  fall,  and  then  strike  back  for  the 
coming  boat.  Then  he  saw  them  no  more.  That 
was  the  last  of  my  poor  friends. 

"And  we  had  all  been  so  gay,  so  gay!  For  how 
could  we  know?  All  the  Russians  said  that  never 
had  they  seen  a  people  so  light-hearted  and  frolicking 
as  the  Calif ornians,  so  hospitable,  so  like  one  great 
family.  And  we  were,  we  were.  But  you  know  of 
that  time.  Was  not  your  mother  Conchitita  Castro, 
if  she  did  marry  an  American  and  has  not  taught 
you  ten  words  of  Spanish  ?  It  is  of  Concha  you  would 

14 


Concha  Argudlo,  Sister  Dominica 


hear,  and  I  ramble.  Well,  who  knows  ?  perhaps  I 
hesitate.  Rezanov  was  of  the  Greek  Church.  No 
priest  in  California  would  have  married  them  even 
had  Don  Jose — el  santo  we  called  him — given  his 
consent.  It  was  for  that  reason  Rezanov  went  to 
obtain  a  dispensation  from  His  Holiness  and  a  license 
from  the  King  of  Spain.  Concha  knew  that  he  could 
not  return  for  two  years  or  nearly  that,  nor  even 
send  her  a  letter;  for  why  should  ships  come  down 
from  Sitka  until  the  treaty  was  signed?  Only 
Rezanov  could  get  what  he  wanted,  law  or  no  law. 
And  then  too  our  Governor  had  forbidden  the 
British  and  Bostonians — so  we  called  the  Americans 
in  those  days — to  enter  our  ports.  This  Concha 
knew,  and  when  one  knows  one  can  think  in  storeys, 
as  it  were,  and  put  the  last  at  the  top.  It  is  not  so 
bad  as  the  hope  that  makes  the  heart  thump  every 
morning  and  the  eyes  turn  into  fountains  at  night. 
Dios!  To  think  that  I  should  ever  have  shed  a  tear 
over  a  man.  Chinchosas,  all  of  them.  However — I 
think  Concha,  who  was  never  quite  as  others,  knew 
deep  down  in  her  heart  that  he  would  not  come  back, 
that  it  was  all  too  good  to  be  true.  Never  was  a 
man  seen  as  handsome  as  that  one,  and  so  clever — a 
touch  of  the  devil  in  his  cleverness,  but  that  may 
have  been  because  he  was  a  Russian.  I  know  not. 
And  to  be  a  great  lady  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  later — 
who  can  tell  ? — vice-Tsarina  of  all  this  part  of  the 
world!  No,  it  could  not  be.  It  was  a  fairy  tale.  I 
only  wonder  that  the  bare  possibility  came  into  the 
life  of  any  woman, — and  that  a  maiden  of  New 
Spain,  in  an  unknown  corner,  that  might  as  well  have 
been  on  Venus  or  Mars. 

15 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"But  Concha  had  character.  She  was  not  one  to 
go  into  a  decline — although  I  am  woman  enough  to 
know  that  her  pillow  was  wet  many  nights;  and  be 
sides  she  lost  the  freshness  of  her  beauty.  She  was 
often  as  gay  as  ever,  but  she  cared  less  and  less  for 
the  dance,  and  found  more  to  do  at  home.  Don 
Jose  was  made  Commandante  of  the  Santa  Barbara 
Company  that  same  year,  and  it  was  well  for  her  to 
be  in  a  place  where  there  were  no  memories  of 
Rezanov.  But  late  in  the  following  year  as  the  time 
approached  for  his  return,  or  news  of  him,  she  could 
not  contain  her  impatience.  We  all  saw  it — I  was 
visiting  the  Pachecos  in  the  Presidio  of  Santa  Bar 
bara.  She  grew  so  thin.  Her  eyes  were  never  still. 
We  knew.  And  then! — how  many  times  she  climbed 
to  the  fortress — it  was  on  that  high  bluff  beside  the 
channel — and  stared  out  to  sea — when  1808  and  the 
Spring  had  come — for  hours  together:  Rezanov 
was  to  return  by  way  of  Mexico.  Then,  when  I 
went  back  to  San  Francisco  soon  after,  she  went  with 
me,  and  again  she  would  watch  the  sea  from  the 
summit  of  Lone  Mountain,  as  we  call  it  now.  In 
spite  of  her  reason  she  hoped,  I  suppose;  for  that 
is  the  way  of  women.  Or  perhaps  she  only  longed 
for  the  word  from  Sitka  that  would  tell  her  the  worst 
and  have  done  with  it.  Who  knows?  She  never 
said,  and  we  dared  not  speak  of  it.  She  was  always 
very  sweet,  our  Concha,  but  there  never  was  a  time 
when  you  could  take  a  liberty  with  her. 

"No  ship  came,  but  something  else  did — an  earth 
quake!  Ay  yi,  what  an  earthquake  that  was!  Not 
a  temblor  but  a  terremoto.  The  whole  Presidio  came 
down.  I  do  not  know  now  how  we  saved  all  the 

16 


"  SHE  WAS  ALWAYS  VERY  SWEET, 

OUR  CONCHA,  BUT  THERE  NEVER  WAS  A  TIME  WHEN 

YOU  COULD  TAKE  A  LIBERTY 

WITH  HER." 


FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  LILLIE  V.  O' 


>rtr< 


Concha  Arguello,  Sister  Dominica 


babies,  but  we  always  flew  to  the  open  with  a  baby 
under  each  arm  the  moment  an  earthquake  began, 
and  in  the  first  seconds  even  this  was  not  so  bad. 
The  wall  about  the  Presidio  was  fourteen  feet  high 
and  seven  feet  thick  and  there  were  solid  trunks 
of  trees  crossed  inside  the  adobe.  It  looked  like  a 
heap  of  dirt,  nothing  more.  Luis  was  riding  up  from 
the  Battery  of  Yerba  Buena  and  his  horse  was  flung 
down  and  he  saw  the  sand-dunes  heaving  toward 
him  like  waves  in  a  storm  and  shiver  like  quicksilver. 
And  there  was  a  roar  as  if  the  earth  had  dropped 
and  the  sea  gone  after.  Ay  California!  And  to  think 
that  when  Luis  wrote  a  bitter  letter  to  Governor 
Arillaga  in  Monterey,  the  old  Mexican  wrote  back 
that  he  had  felt  earthquakes  himself  and  sent  him  a 
box  of  dates  for  consolation!  Well — we  slept  on 
the  ground  for  two  months  and  cooked  out-of-doors, 
for  we  would  not  go  even  into  the  Mission — which 
had  not  suffered — until  the  earthquakes  were  over; 
and  if  the  worst  comes  first  there  are  plenty  after — 
and,  somehow,  harder  to  bear.  Perhaps  to  Concha 
that  terrible  time  was  a  God-send,  for  she  thought 
no  more  of  Rezanov  for  a  while.  If  the  earthquake 
does  not  swallow  your  body  it  swallows  your  little 
self.  You  are  a  flea.  Just  that  and  nothing  more. 

"But  after  a  time  all  was  quiet  again;  the  houses 
were  rebuilt  and  Concha  went  back  to  Santa  Bar 
bara.  By  that  time  she  knew  that  Rezanov  would 
never  come,  although  it  was  several  years  before  she 
had  a  word.  Such  stories  have  been  told  that  she 
did  not  know  of  his  death  for  thirty  years!  Did  not 
Baranhov,  Chief-manager  of  the  Russian-Alaskan 
Company  up  there  at  Sitka,send  Koskov — that  name 

17 


Fiction 


was  so  like! — to  Bodega  Bay  in  1812,  and  would  he 
fail  to  send  such  news  with  him?  Was  not  Dr. 
Langsdorff  s  book  published  in  1814  ?  Did  not 
Kotzbue,  who  was  on  his  excellency's  staff  during 
the  embassy  to  Japan,  come  to  us  in  1816,  and  did 
we  not  talk  with  him  every  day  for  a  month  ?  Did 
not  Rezanov's  death  spoil  all  Russia's  plans  in  this 
part  of  the  world — perhaps,  who  knows  ?  alter  the 
course  of  her  history?  It  is  likely  we  were  long 
without  hearing  the  talk  of  the  North!  Such  non 
sense!  Yes,  she  knew  it  soon  enough,  but  as  that 
good  Padre  Abella  once  said  to  us,  she  had  the  mak 
ing  of  the  saint  and  the  martyr  in  her,  and  even 
when  she  could  hope  no  more  she  did  not  die,  nor 
marry  some  one  else,  nor  wither  up  and  spit  at  the 
world.  Long  before  the  news  came,  indeed,  she 
carried  out  a  plan  she  had  conceived,  so  Padre 
Abella  told  us,  even  while  Rezanov  was  yet  here. 
There  were  no  convents  in  California  in  those  days— 
you  may  know  what  a  stranded  handful  we  were— 
but  she  joined  the  Tertiary  or  Third  Order  of 
Franciscans,  and  wore  always  the  grey  habit,  the 
girdle,  and  the  cross.  She  went  among  the  Indians 
christianizing  them,  remaining  a  long  while  at  Sole- 
dad,  a  bleak  and  cheerless  place,  where  she  was  also 
a  great  solace  to  the  wives  of  the  soldiers  and  set 
tlers,  whose  children  she  taught.  The  Indians  called 
her  'La  Beata,'  and  by  that  name  she  was  known 
in  all  California  until  she  took  the  veil,  and  that  was 
more  than  forty  years  later.  And  she  was  wor 
shipped,  no  less.  So  beautiful  she  was,  so  humble, 
so  sweet,  and  at  the  same  time  so  practical;  she  had 
what  the  Americans  call  'hard  sense,'  and  some- 

18 


Concha  Arguello,  Sister  Dominica 


thing  of  Rezanov's  own  way  of  managing  people. 
When  she  made  up  her  mind  to  bring  a  sinner  or  a 
savage  into  the  Church  she  did  it.  You  know. 

"But  do  not  think  she  had  her  way  in  other  things 
without  a  struggle.  Don  Jose  and  Dona  Ignacia— 
her  mother — permitted  her  to  enter  upon  the  re 
ligious  life,  for  they  understood;  and  Luis  and  San 
tiago  made  no  protest  either,  for  they  understood 
also,  and  had  loved  Rezanov.  But  the  rest  of  her 
family,  the  relations,  the  friends,  the  young  men — 
the  caballeros!  They  went  in  a  body  you  might  say 
to  Don  Jose  and  demanded  that  Concha,  the  most 
beautiful  and  fascinating  and  clever  girl  in  New 
Spain,  should  come  back  to  the  world  where  she 
belonged, — be  given  in  marriage.  But  Concha  had 
always  ruled  Don  Jose,  and  all  the  protests  went  to 
the  winds.  And  William  Sturgis — the  young  Bos- 
tonian  who  lived  with  us  for  so  many  years  ?  I  have 
not  told  you  of  him,  and  your  mother  was  too  young 
to  remember.  Well,  never  mind.  He  would  have 
taken  Concha  from  California,  given  her  just  a  little 
of  what  she  would  have  had  as  the  wife  of  Rezanov— 
not  in  himself;  he  was  as  ugly  as  my  whiskers; 
but  enough  of  the  great  world  to  satisfy  many  women, 
and  no  one  could  deny  that  he  was  good  and  very 
clever.  But  to  Concha  he  was  a  brother — no  more. 
Perhaps  she  did  not  even  take  the  trouble  to  refuse 
him.  It  was  a  way  she  had.  After  a  while  he  went 
home  to  Boston  and  died  of  the  climate.  I  was  very 
sorry.  He  was  one  of  us. 

"And  her  intellect?  Concha  put  it  to  sleep  for 
ever.  She  never  read  another  book  of  travel,  of  his 
tory,  biography,  memoirs,  essays,  poetry — romance 

19 


TSpinners'Book  of  Fiction 


she  had  never  read,  and  although  some  novels 
came  to  California  in  time  she  never  opened  them. 
It  was  peace  she  wanted,  not  the  growing  mind  and 
the  roving  imagination.  She  brought  her  conversa 
tion  down  to  the  level  of  the  humblest,  and  perhaps— 
who  knows  ? — her  thoughts.  At  all  events,  al 
though  the  time  came  when  she  smiled  again,  and 
was  often  gay  when  we  were  all  together  in  the  fam 
ily — particularly  with  the  children,  who  came  very 
fast,  of  course — well,  she  was  then  another  Concha, 
not  that  brilliant  dissatisfied  ambitious  girl  we  had 
all  known,  who  had  thought  the  greatest  gentleman 
from  the  Viceroy's  court  not  good  enough  to  throw 
gold  at  her  feet  when  she  danced  El  Son. 

"There  were  changes  in  her  life.  In  1814  Don 
Jose  was  made  Gobernador  Propietario  of  Lower 
California.  He  took  all  of  his  unmarried  children 
with  him,  and  Concha  thought  it  her  duty  to  go. 
They  lived  in  Loreto  until  1821.  But  Concha  never 
ceased  to  pray  that  she  might  return  to  California— 
we  never  looked  upon  that  withered  tongue  of  Mex 
ico  as  California;  and  when  Don  Jose  died  soon 
after  his  resignation,  and  her  mother  went  to  live 
with  her  married  daughters,  Concha  returned  with 
the  greatest  happiness  she  had  known,  I  think,  since 
Rezanov  went.  Was  not  California  all  that  was 
left  her  ? 

"She  lived  in  Santa  Barbara  for  many  years,  in 
the  house  of  Don  Jose  de  la  Guerra — in  that  end 
room  of  the  east  wing.  She  had  many  relations,  it 
is  true,  but  Concha  was  always  human  and  liked 
relations  better  when  she  was  not  surrounded  by 
them.  Although  she  never  joined  in  any  of  the 

20 


festivities  of  that  gay  time  she  was  often  with  the 
Guerra  family  and  seemed  happy  enough  to  take 
up  her  old  position  as  Beata  among  the  Indians  and 
children,  until  they  built  a  school  for  her  in  Mon 
terey.  How  we  used  to  wonder  if  she  ever  thought 
of  Rezanov  any  more.  From  the  day  the  two  years 
were  over  she  never  mentioned  his  name,  and  every 
body  respected  her  reserve,  even  her  parents.  And 
she  grew  more  and  more  reserved  with  the  years, 
never  speaking  of  herself  at  all,  except  just  after  her 
return  from  Mexico.  But  somehow  we  knew.  And 
did  not  the  very  life  she  had  chosen  express  it? 
Even  the  Church  may  not  reach  the  secret  places 
of  the  soul,  and  who  knows  what  heaven  she  may 
have  found  in  hers  ?  And  now  ?  I  think  purgatory 
is  not  for  Concha,  and  he  was  not  bad  as  men  go, 
and  has  had  time  to  do  his  penance.  It  is  true  the 
Church  tells  us  there  is  no  marrying  in  heaven — 
but,  well,  perhaps  there  is  a  union  for  mated  spirits 
of  which  the  Church  knows  nothing.  You  saw  her 
expression  in  her  coffin. 

"Well!  The  time  arrived  when  we  had  a  convent. 
Bishop  Alemany  came  in  1850,  and  in  the  first 
sermon  he  preached  in  Santa  Barbara — I  think  it 
was  his  first  in  California — he  announced  that  he 
wished  to  found  a  convent.  He  was  a  Dominican, 
but  one  order  was  as  another  to  Concha;  she  had 
never  been  narrow  in  anything.  As  soon  as  the 
service  was  over,  before  he  had  time  to  leave  the 
church,  she  went  to  him  and  asked  to  be  the  first  to 
join.  He  was  glad  enough,  for  he  knew  of  her  and 
that  no  one  could  fill  his  convent  as  rapidly  as  she. 
Therefore  was  she  the  first  nun,  the  first  to  take  holy 

21 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


vows,  in  our  California.  For  a  little,  the  convent 
was  in  the  old  Hartnell  house  in  Monterey,  but  Don 
Manuel  Ximeno  had  built  a  great  hotel  while  be 
lieving,  with  all  the  rest,  that  Monterey  would  be 
the  capital  of  the  new  California  as  of  the  old,  and 
he  was  glad  to  sell  it  to  the  Bishop.  We  were  de 
lighted — of  course  I  followed  when  Concha  told  me 
it  was  my  vocation — that  the  Americans  preferred 
Yerba  Buena. 

"Concha  took  her  first  vows  in  April,  soon  after 
the  Bishop's  arrival,  choosing  the  name  Sister  Maria 
Dominica.  On  the  13th  of  April  1852  she  took 
the  black  veil  and  perpetual  vows.  Of  course  the 
convent  had  a  school  at  once.  Concha's  school  had 
been  a  convent  of  a  sort  and  the  Bishop  merely  took 
it  over.  All  the  flower  of  California  have  been  edu 
cated  by  Concha  Argiiello,  including  Chonita  Es- 
tenega  who  is  so  great  a  lady  in  Mexico  today.  Two 
years  later  we  came  here,  and  here  we  shall  stay, 
no  doubt.  I  think  Concha  loved  Benicia  better  than 
any  part  of  California  she  had  known,  for  it  was 
still  California  without  too  piercing  reminders  of 
the  past:  life  at  the  other  Presidios  and  Missions 
was  but  the  counterpart  of  our  San  Francisco,  and 
here  the  priests  and  military  had  never  come.  In 
this  beautiful  wild  spot  where  the  elk  and  the  an 
telope  and  the  deer  run  about  like  rabbits,  and  you 
meet  a  bear  if  you  go  too  far — Holy  Mary! — where 
she  went  sometimes  in  a  boat  among  the  tules  on 
the  river,  and  where  one  may  believe  the  moon  lives 
in  a  silver  lake  in  the  old  crater  of  Monte  Diablo — 
Ay,  it  was  different  enough  and  might  bring  peace 
to  any  heart.  What  she  must  have  suffered  for  years 

22 


Concha  Argudlo,  Sister  Dominica 


in  those  familiar  scenes!  But  she  never  told.  And 
now  she  lies  here  under  her  little  cross  and  he  in 
Krasnoiarsk — under  a  stone  shaped  like  an  altar, 
they  say.  Well !  who  knows  ?  That  is  all.  I  go  in 
now;  my  old  bones  ache  with  the  night  damp.  But 
my  mind  is  lighter,  although  never  I  shall  speak  of 
this  again.  And  do  you  not  think  of  it  any  more. 
Curiosity  and  the  world  and  such  nonsense  as  love 
and  romance  are  not  for  us.  Go  to  bed  at  once  and 
tie  a  stocking  round  your  throat  that  you  have  not 
a  frog  in  it  tomorrow  morning  when  you  sing  '  Glory 
be  to  God  on  High.'  Suen  Dias  !  ' ' 


23 


THE  FORD  OF 
CREVEOEUR 

BY 

MARY  AUSTIN 


Reprinted  from  Out  West  by  permission. 


THE  FORD  OF  CREVECCEUR 

ES.  I  understand;  you  are  M'siu  the 
Notary,  M'siu  the  Sheriff  has  told 
me.  You  are  come  to  hear  how  by  the 
help  of  God  I  have  killed  Filon 
Geraud  at  the  ford  of  Crevecoeur. 

By  the  help  of  God,  yes.  Think 
you  if  the  devil  had  a  hand  in  it,  he  would  not  have 
helped  Filon  ?  For  he  was  the  devil's  own,  was  Filon. 
He  was  big,  he  was  beautiful,  he  had  a  way — but 
always  there  was  the  devil's  mark.  I  see  that  the  first 
time  ever  I  knew  him  at  Agua  Caliente.  The  devil  sit 
in  Filon's  eyes  and  laugh — laugh — some  time  he  go 
away  like  a  man  at  a  window,  but  he  come  again. 
M'siu,  he  live  there!  And  Filon,  he  know  that  I  see, 
so  he  make  like  he  not  care;  but  I  think  he  care  a 
little,  else  why  he  make  for  torment  me  all  the  time  ? 
Ever  since  I  see  him  at  that  shearing  at  Agua  Caliente 
eight,  ten  year  gone,  he  not  like  for  let  me  be.  I 
have  been  the  best  shearer  in  that  shed,  snip — snip — 
quick,  clean.  Ah,  it  is  beautiful !  All  the  sheepmen  like 
for  have  me  shear  their  sheep.  Filon  is  new  man  at 
that  shearing,  Lebecque  is  just  hire  him  then;  but 
yes,  M'siu,  to  see  him  walk  about  that  Agua  Caliente 
you  think  he  own  all  those  sheep,  all  that  range.  Ah- 
he  had  a  way!  Pretty  soon  that  day  Filon  is  hearing 

27 


°f  Fiction 


all  sheepmen  say  that  Raoul  is  the  best  shearer; 
then  he  come  lean  on  the  rail  by  my  shed  and  laugh 
softly  like  he  talk  with  himself,  and  say,  "See  the 
little  man;  see  him  shear."  But  me,  I  can  no  more. 
The  shears  turn  in  my  hand  so  I  make  my  sheep  all 
bleed  same  like  one  butcher.  Then  I  look  up  and 
see  the  devil  in  Filon  Geraud's  eye.  It  is  always  so 
after  that,  all  those  years  until  I  kill  Filon.  If  I 
make  a  little  game  of  poker  with  other  shepherds, 
then  he  walks  along  and  say: 

"Ah,  you,  Raoul,  you  is  one  sharp  fellow.  I  not 
like  for  play  with  you."  Then  is  my  play  all  gone 
bad. 

But  if  Filon  play,  then  he  say,  "Come,  you  little 
man,  and  bring  me  the  good  luck." 

It  is  so,  M'siu!  If  I  go  stand  by  that  game,  Filon 
is  win,  win  all  the  time.  That  is  because  of  the  devil. 
And  if  there  are  women — no,  M'siu,  there  was  never 
one  woman.  What  would  a  shepherd,  whose  work 
is  always  toward  the  hills,  do  with  a  woman  ?  Is  it 
to  plant  a  vineyard  that  others  may  drink  wine? 
Ah,  non!  But  me,  at  shearings  and  at  Tres  Pifios 
where  we  pay  the  tax,  there  I  like  to  talk  to  pretty 
girl  same  as  other  shepherds,  then  Filon  come  make 
like  he  one  gran'  friend.  All  the  time  he  make  say 
the  compliments,  he  make  me  one  mock.  His  eyes 
they  laugh  always,  that  make  women  like  to  do 
what  he  say.  But  me,  I  have  no  chance. 

It  is  so,  M'siu,  when  I  go  out  with  my  sheep.  This 
is  my  trail — I  go  out  after  the  shearing  through  the 
Canada  de  las  Vinas,  then  across  the  Little  Antelope, 
while  the  grass  is  quick.  After  that  I  go  up  towrard 
the  hills  of  Olancho,  where  I  keep  one  month;  there 

28 


is  much  good  feed  and  no  man  comes.  Also  then 
I  wait  at  Tres  Pinos  for  the  sheriff  that  I  pay  the  tax. 
Sacre  !  it  is  a  hard  one,  that  tax !  After  that  I  am  free 
of  the  Sierras,  what  you  call  Nieve — snowy.  Well  I 
know  that  country.  I  go  about  with  my  sheep  and 
seek  my  meadows — mine,  M'siu,  that  I  have  climbed 
the  great  mountains  to  spy  out  among  the  pines, 
that  I  have  found  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  my  own 
wit:  La  Crevasse,  Moultrie,  Bighorn,  Angostura, 
Also,  I  go  by  other  meadows  where  other  shepherds 
feed  one  month  with  another;  but  these  are  all  mine. 
I  go  about  and  come  again  when  the  feed  is  grown. 

M'siu,  it  is  hard  to  believe,  but  it  is  so — Filon  finds 
my  meadows  one  by  one.  One  year  I  come  by  La 
Crevasse — there  is  nothing  there;  I  go  on  to  Moultrie— 
here  is  the  grass  eaten  to  the  roots,  and  the  little  pines 
have  no  tops;  at  Bighorn  is  the  fresh  litter  of  a  flock. 
I  think  maybe  my  sheep  go  hungry  that  summer.  So 
I  come  to  Angostura.  There  is  Filon.  He  laugh. 
Then  it  come  into  my  mind  that  one  day  I  goin'  kill 
that  Filon  Geraud.  By  the  help  of  God.  Yes.  For 
he  is  big  that  Filon,  he  is  strong;  and  me,  M'siu,  I 
am  as  God  made  me. 

So  always,  where  I  go  on  the  range  there  is  Filon; 
if  I  think  to  change  my  trail,  he  change  also  his.  If 
I  have  good  luck,  Filon  has  better.  If  to  him  is  the 
misfortune — ah — you  shall  hear. 

One  year  Gabriel  Lausanne  tell  me  that  Filon  is  lose 
all  his  lambs  in  the  Santa  Ana.  You  know  that  Santa 
Ana,  M'siu  ?  It  is  one  mighty  wind.  It  comes  up  small, 
very  far  away,  one  little  dust  like  the  clouds,  creep, 
creep  close  by  the  land.  It  lies  down  along  the  sand ; 
you  think  it  is  done  ?  Eh,  it  is  one  liar,  that  Santa 

29 


Ana.  It  rise  up  again,  it  is  pale  gold,  it  seek  the  sky. 
That  sky  is  all  wide,  clean,  no  speck.  Ah,  it  knows, 
that  sky;  it  will  have  nothing  lying  about  when  the 
Santa  Ana  comes.  It  is  hot  then,  you  have  the  smell 
of  the  earth  in  your  nostrils.  That,  M'siu,  is  the  Santa 
Ana.  It  is  pale  dust  and  the  great  push  of  the  wind. 
The  sand  bites,  there  is  no  seeing  the  flock's  length. 
They  huddle,  and  the  lambs  are  smothered;  they 
scatter,  and  the  dogs  can  nothing  make.  If  it  blow 
one  day,  you  thank  God;  if  it  blow  two  days,  then  is 
sheepman  goin'  to  lose  his  sheep.  When  Gabriel  tell 
me  that  about  Filon,  I  think  he  deserve  all  that. 
What  you  think,  M'siu  ?  That  same  night  the  water 
of  Tinpah  rise  in  his  banks  afar  off  by  the  hills  where 
there  is  rain.  It  comes  roaring  down  the  wash  where 
I  make  my  camp,  for  you  understand  at  that  time 
of  year  there  should  be  no  water  in  the  wrash  of  Tin- 
pah,  but  it  come  in  the  night  and  carry  away  one- 
half  of  my  sheep.  Eh,  how  you  make  that,  M'siu; 
is  it  the  devil  or  no  ? 

Well,  it  go  like  this  eight,  ten  year;  then  it  come 
last  summer,  and  I  meet  Filon  at  the  ford  of  Creve- 
coeur.  That  is  the  water  that  comes  down  eastward 
from  Mineral  Mountain  between  Olancho  and  Sen 
tinel  Rock.  It  is  what  you  call  Mineral  Creek,  but 
the  French  shepherds  call  it  Crevecoeur.  For  why; 
it  is  a  most  swift  and  wide  water;  it  goes  darkly  be 
tween  earthy  banks  upon  which  it  gnaws.  It  has 
hot  springs  which  come  up  in  it  without  reason,  so 
that  there  is  no  safe  crossing  at  any  time.  Its  sands 
are  quick;  what  they  take,  they  take  wholly  with  the 
life  in  it,  and  after  a  little  they  spew  it  out  again. 
And,  look  you,  it  makes  no  singing,  this  water  of 

30 


Crevecoeur.  Twenty  years  have  I  kept  sheep  be 
tween  Red  Butte  and  the  Temblor  Hills,  and  I  say 
this.  Make  no  fear  of  singing  water,  for  it  goes  not 
too  deeply  but  securely  on  a  rocky  bottom;  such  a 
one  you  may  trust.  But  this  silent  one,  that  is  hot 
or  cold,  deep  or  shallow,  and  has  never  its  banks 
the  same  one  season  with  another,  this  you  may  not 
trust,  M'siu.  And  to  get  sheep  across  it — ah — it 
breaks  the  heart,  this  Crevecoeur. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  one  place  where  a  great  rock 
runs  slantwise  of  the  stream,  but  under  it,  so  that 
the  water  goes  shallowly  with  a  whisper,  ah,  so  fast, 
and  below  it  is  a  pool.  Here  on  the  rocks  the  shep 
herds  make  pine  logs  to  lie  with  stones  so  that  the 
sheep  cross  over.  Every  year  the  water  carries  the 
logs  away  and  the  shepherds  build  again,  and  there 
is  no  shepherd  goes  by  that  water  but  lose  some 
sheep.  Therefore,  they  call  it  the  ford  of  Crevecoeur.* 

Well,  I  have  been  about  by  the  meadow  of  Angos 
tura  when  it  come  last  July,  and  there  I  see  Narcisse 
Duplin.  He  is  tell  me  the  feed  is  good  about  Sentinel 
Rock,  so  I  think  me  to  go  back  by  the  way  of  Creve 
coeur.  There  is  pine  wood  all  about  eastward  from 
that  place.  It  is  all  shadow  there  at  midday  and  has 
a  weary  sound.  Me,  I  like  it  not,  that  pine  wood, 
so  I  push  the  flock  and  am  very  glad  when  I  hear 
toward  the  ford  the  bark  of  dogs  and  the  broken 
sound  of  bells.  I  think  there  is  other  shepherd  that 
make  talk  with  me.  But  me,  M'siu,  sacre ! damn! 
when  I  come  out  by  the  ford  there  is  Filon  Geraud. 
He  has  come  up  one  side  Crevecoeur,  with  his  flock, 
as  I  have  come  up  the  other.  He  laugh. 

*  Break-heart. 

31 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"Hillo,  Raoul,"  say  Filon,  "will  you  cross?" 

"I  will  cross,"  say  I. 

"After  me,"  say  Filon. 

"Before,"  say  I. 

M'siu  does  not  know  about  sheep?  Ah,  non.  It 
is  so  that  the  sheep  is  most  scare  of  all  beasts  about 
water.  Never  so  little  a  stream  will  he  cross,  but  if 
the  dogs  compel  him.  It  is  the  great  trouble  of 
shepherds  to  get  the  flock  across  the  waters  that  go 
in  and  about  the  Sierras.  For  that  it  is  the  custom 
to  have  two,  three  goats  with  the  flocks  to  go  first 
across  the  water,  then  they  will  follow.  But  here  at 
Crevecceur  it  is  bad  crossing  any  way  you  go;  also, 
that  day  it  is  already  afternoon.  Therefore  I  stand 
at  one  side  that  ford  and  make  talk  with  Filon  at 
the  other  about  who  goes  first.  Then  my  goat 
which  leads  my  flock  come  push  by  me  and  I  stand 
on  that  log  while  we  talk.  He  is  one  smart  goat. 

"Eh,  Raoul,  let  the  goats  decide,"  cries  Filon, 
and  to  that  I  have  agree.  Filon  push  his  goat  on  the 
log,  he  is  one  great  black  one  that  is  call  Diable— 
I  ask  you  is  that  a  name  for  a  goat?  I  have  call 
mine  Noe.  So  they  two  walk  on  that  log  very  still; 
for  they  see  what  they  have  to  do.  Then  they  push 
with  the  head,  Diable  and  Noe,  till  that  log  it  rock 
in  the  water;  Filon  is  cry  to  his  goat  and  I  to  mine. 
Then  because  of  that  water  one  goat  slip  on  the  log, 
and  the  other  is  push  so  hard  that  he  cannot  stop;  over 
they  go  into  the  pool  of  swift  water,  over  and  over  until 
they  come  to  the  shallows;  then  they  find  their  feet 
and  come  up,  each  on  his  own  side.  They  will  not 
care  to  push  with  the  heads  again  at  that  time.  Filon 
he  walk  out  on  the  log  to  me,  and  I  walk  to  him. 

32 


My  goat  have  won  the  ford,"  says  he. 
'Your  goat  cannot  keep  what  he  wins." 

"But  I  can,"  say  Filon.  Then  he  look  at  me  with 
his  eyes  like — like  I  have  told  you,  M'siu. 

"Raoul,"  he  say,  "you  is  one  little  man." 

With  that  I  remember  me  all  the  wrong  I  have 
had  from  this  one. 

"Go  you  after  your  goat,  Filon  Geraud,"  say  I. 

With  that  I  put  my  staff  behind  his  foot,  so,  M'siu, 
and  send  him  into  the  water,  splash !  He  come  to  his 
feet  presently  in  the  pool  with  the  water  all  in  his 
hair  and  his  eyes,  and  the  stream  run  strong  and 
dark  against  his  middle. 

"Hey,  you,  Raoul,  what  for  you  do  that?"  he  say, 
but  also  he  laugh.  "Ah,  ha,  little  man,  you  have 
the  joke  this  time." 

M'siu,  that  laugh  stop  on  his  face  like  it  been  freeze, 
his  mouth  is  open,  his  eyes  curl  up.  It  is  terrible, 
that  dead  laugh  in  the  midst  of  the  black  water  that 
run  down  from  his  hair. 

"Raoul,"  he  say,  "the  sand  is  quick!" 

Then  he  take  one  step,  and  I  hear  the  sand  suck. 
I  see  Filon  shiver  like  a  reed  in  the  swift  water. 

66 My  God"  he  say,  "the  sand  is  quick!" 

M'siu,  I  do  not  know  how  it  is  with  me.  When  I 
throw  Filon  in  the  pool,  I  have  not  known  it  is  quick 
sand;  but  when  I  hear  that,  I  think  I  am  glad.  I 
kneel  down  by  that  log  in  the  ford  and  watch  Filon. 
He  speak  to  me  very  quiet: 

'You  must  get  a  rope  and  make  fast  to  that  pine 
and  throw  the  end  to  me.  There  is  a  rope  in  my 
pack." 

"Yes,"  say  I,  "there  is  a  rope." 

33 


M'siu,  I  think  I  would  not  have  killed  him  with 
my  hands,  but  if  God  give  him  over  to  me  in  the 
quick-sand  of  Crevecoeur,  how  then?  So  I  hold 
me  still.  Then  is  Filon  begin  to  curse  and  cry. 

:<You,  Raoul!    I  make  you  pay  for  this!" 

He  work  with  his  feet  and  beat  the  water  with  his 
hands.  But  me,  I  can  see  the  pool  rising  to  his  breast. 
After  a  little  Filon  see  that  also,  then  he  leave  off  to 
struggle  and  make  as  if  he  laugh,  but  not  with  his 
eyes — never  any  more  with  his  eyes  while  he  live. 

"Well,  Raoul,"  he  says,  "you  will  have  your  fun, 
but  man,  do  not  make  it  too  long." 

"It  will  not  be  long,  Filon,"  say  I. 

After  that  he  is  still  until  the  water  is  come  to  his 
shoulders,  then  he  speak  softly:  "Raoul,  my  friend, 
there  is  in  the  bank  of  Sacramento  eight  hundred 
dollars.  It  shall  be  his  who  saves  me  from  this  pool. 
Eight  hundred  dollars.  Think,  Raoul!" 

"Eight  hundred  dollars?" 

"It  is  a  good  sum,"  say  he. 

"But  you  will  not  need  it  now,  Filon." 

By  that  I  see  the  water  is  rising  fast.  Then  he 
burst  out: 

"Is  it  that  you  mean  to  kill  me,  Raoul.  Mother  of 
God,  is  it  so?" 

"It  is  so,  Filon." 

After  that  I  do  not  know  how  it  is.  The  water  is 
rising  fast,  the  water  is  very  swift  in  the  pool  and  curl 
back  against  his  throat.  I  think  he  is  pray  to  God 
and  to  me;  then  he  fight  in  the  water — he  choke- 
he  cry.  But  me,  I  have  run  away  into  that  pine  wood 
for  a  little  while.  Then  I  think  I  will  go  and  get  that 
rope  quick — but  when  I  come  again  there  is  Filon 

34 


TFofCrevecur 


under  the  pool.  I  can  see  that  clearly,  but  a  little 
way  under  the  dark  water.  His  body  is  bent  down 
stream  and  flows  with  its  flowing  like  the  bent  grass 
that  grows  by  the  water  border,  like  the  long  grass 
that  is  covered  and  rots  under  flood  water.  It  is 
shaken  with  the  shaking  of  Crevecceur.  His  eyes  are 
open,  and  his  mouth,  like  a  fish,  and  the  water  goes 
over  them.  It  is  as  if  he  laugh  down  there  under  the 
pool;  I  see  his  body  shake.  His  arms  stream  out 
from  him  like  the  blades  of  wet  grass ;  his  hand  come 
up  to  the  top  and  whirl  about  and  go  down  with  the 
running  water.  But  never  they  grasp  nor  go  forward. 
He  is  fast  there  in  the  quick-sands  of  Crevecceur. 

Yes,  M'siu,  it  is  so  what  you  have  said.  M'siu 
the  Sheriff  has  also  told  me.  If  I  had  taken  my  flock 
and  gone  my  way,  telling  never  any  man,  then  I 
should  have  missed  this  trouble  and  the  talk  of  hang 
ing.  But  consider!  M'siu  is  perhaps  accustomed 
to  think  what  is  best  to  be  done  in  an  evil  case;  but 
me,  I  have  never  before  need  to  hide  what  I  have 
done.  How  shall  I  begin  then  ?  Also,  I  am  a  shep 
herd.  Another  might  leave  the  sheep  of  Filon  in  the 
pine  wood  by  the  ford  of  Crevecceur,  but  a  shepherd— 
no.  It  is  so  that  the  sheep  are  the  most  silly  of  all 
beasts.  They  know  not  to  cross  the  water — but  if 
they  are  led,  they  make  no  fright.  They  have  no 
cry  when  a  cry  is  most  of  need.  If  a  bear  or  coyote 
come  upon  the  flock  to  torment  them,  they  huddle, 
they  run  foolishly  in  twos  and  threes,  making  no 
sound.  If  there  be  a  rain  or  untimely  snow,  the 
lambs  sicken  and  die  plentifully.  Ah,  non!  That 
man  have  no  heart  who  will  leave  sheep  to  the  hills 
with  no  shepherding.  Me,  M'siu,  I  cannot. 

35 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


So  I  take  my  flocks  across  the  ford,  since  Filon  is  in 
the  water,  and  take  all  those  silly  ones  toward  La 
Crevasse,  and  after  I  think  about  that  business. 
Three  days  after,  I  meet  P'tee  Pete.  I  tell  him  I 
find  the  sheep  of  Filon  in  the  pine  wood  below  Sen 
tinel  Rock.  Pete,  he  say  that  therefore  Filon  is  come 
to  some  hurt,  and  that  he  look  for  him.  That  make 
me  scare  lest  he  should  look  by  the  ford  of  Crevecceur. 
So  after  that,  five  or  six  days,  when  Narcisse  Duplin 
is  come  up  with  me,  I  tell  him  Filon  is  gone  to  Sacra 
mento  where  his  money  is;  therefore  I  keep  care  of 
his  sheep.  That  is  a  better  tale — eh,  M'siu,— for  I 
have  to  say  something.  Every  shepherd  in  that  range 
is  know  those  sheep  of  Filon.  All  this  time  I  think 
me  to  take  the  sheep  to  Pierre  Jullien  in  the  meadow 
of  Black  Mountain.  He  is  not  much,  that  Pierre. 
If  I  tell  him  it  is  one  gift  from  Le  bon  Dieu,  that  is 
explain  enough  for  Pierre  Jullien.  Then  I  will  be 
quit  of  the  trouble  of  Filon  Geraud. 

So,  M'siu,  would  it  have  been,  but  for  that  dog 
Helene.  That  is  Filon's  she-dog  that  he  raise  from 
a  pup.  She  is — she  is  une  femme,  that  dog!  All 
that  first  night  when  we  come  away  from  the  ford, 
she  cry,  cry  in  her  throat  all  through  the  dark,  and 
in  the  light  she  look  at  me  with  her  eyes,  so  to  say: 

"I  know,  Raoul!  I  know  what  is  under  the  water 
of  Crevecceur."  M'siu,  is  a  man  to  stand  that  from 
a  dog?  So  the  next  night  I  beat  her,  and  in  the 
morning  she  is  gone.  I  think  me  the  good  luck  to 
get  rid  of  her.  That  Helene!  M'siu,  what  you 
think  she  do?  She  have  gone  back  to  look  in  the 
water  for  Filon.  There  she  stay,  and  all  sheepmen 
when  they  pass  that  way  see  that  she  is  a  good  sheep- 

36 


The  Ford  of  Crevecoeur 


dog,  and  that  she  is  much  hungry;  so  they  wonder 
that  she  will  not  leave  off  to  look  and  go  with  them. 
After  while  all  people  in  those  parts  is  been  talkin' 
about  that  dog  of  Filon's  that  look  so  keen  in  the 
water  of  Crevecoeur.  Mebbe  four,  five  weeks  after 
that  I  have  killed  Filon,  one  goes  riding  by  that 
place  and  sees  Helene  make  mourn  by  the  water 
side  over  something  that  stick  in  the  sand.  It  is 
Filon.  Yes.  That  quick-sand  have  spit  him  out 
again.  So  you  say;  but  me,  I  think  it  is  the  devil. 

For  the  rest  the  sheriff  has  told  you.  Here  they 
have  brought  me,  and  there  is  much  talk.  Of  that 
I  am  weary,  but  for  this  I  tell  you  all  how  it  is  about 
Filon;  M'siu,  I  would  not  hang.  Look  you,  so  long 
as  I  stay  in  this  life  I  am  quit  of  that  man,  but  if  I 
die — there  is  Filon.  So  will  he  do  unto  me  all  that 
I  did  at  the  ford  of  Crevecoeur,  and  more;  for  he 
is  a  bad  one,  Filon.  Therefore  it  is  as  I  tell  you, 
M'siu,  I,  Raoul.  By  the  help  of  God.  Yes. 


37 


A  CALIFORNIAN 

BY 

GERALDINE  BONNER 


From  Harper's  Magazine 
Copyright,  1903,  by  Harper  and  Brothers 


A  CALIFORNIAN 

T  WAS  nearly  ten  o'clock  when  Jack 
Faraday  ascended  the  steps  of  Mad 
ame  Delmonti's  bow-windowed  man 
sion  and  pressed  the  ele&ric  bell.  He 
was  a  little  out  of  breath  and  nervous, 
for,  being  young  and  a  stranger  to 
San  Francisco,  and  almost  a  stranger  to  Madame 
Delmonti,  he  did  not  exadlly  kndw  at  what  hour  his 
hostess's  conversazione  might  begin,  and  had  upon 
him  the  young  man's  violent  dread  of  being  con 
spicuously  early  or  conspicuously  late. 

It  did  not  seem  that  he  was  either.  As  he  stood  in  the 
doorway  and  surveyed  the  field,  he  felt,  with  a  little 
rising  breath  of  relief,  that  no  one  appeared  to  take 
especial  notice  of  him.  Madame  Delmonti's  rooms 
were  lit  with  a  great  blaze  of  gas,  which,  thrown 
back  from  many  long  mirrors  and  the  gold  mount 
ings  of  a  quantity  of  furniture  and  picture  frames, 
made  an  effect  of  dazzling  yellow  brightness,  as 
brilliantly  glittering  as  the  transformation  scene  of 
a  pantomime. 

In  the  middle  of  the  glare  Madame  Delmonti's 
company  had  disposed  themselves  in  a  circle,  which 
had  some  difficulty  in  accommodating  itself  to  the 
long  narrow  shape  of  the  drawing-room.  Now  and 

41 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


then  an  obstinate  sofa  or  extra  large  plush-covered 
arm-chair  broke  the  harmonious  curve  of  the  circle, 
and  its  occupant  looked  furtively  ill  at  ease,  as  if 
she  felt  the  embarrassment  of  her  position  in  not 
conforming  to  the  general  harmony  of  the  curving 
line. 

The  eyes  of  the  circle  were  fixed  on  a  figure  at  the 
piano,  near  the  end  of  the  room — a  tall  dark  Jewess 
in  a  brown  dress  and  wide  hat,  who  was  singing 
with  that  peculiar  vibrant  richness  of  tone  that  is 
so  often  heard  in  the  voices  of  the  Californian  Jew 
esses.  She  was  perfectly  self-possessed,  and  her 
velvet  eyes,  as  her  impassioned  voice  rose  a  little, 
rested  on  Jack  Faraday  with  a  cheerful  but  not  very 
lively  interest.  Then  they  swept  past  him  to  where, 
on  a  sofa,  quite  out  of  the  circle,  two  women  sat 
listening. 

One  was  a  young  girl,  large,  well-dressed,  and  ex 
ceedingly  handsome;  the  other  a  peaked  lady,  passee 
and  thin,  with  her  hair  bleached  to  a  canary  yellow. 
The  Jewess,  still  singing,  smiled  at  them,  and  the 
girl  gave  back  a  lazy  smile  in  return.  Then  as  the 
song  came  to  a  deep  and  mellow  close,  Madame 
Delmonti,  with  a  delicate  rustling  of  silk  brushing 
against  silk,  swept  across  the  room  and  greeted  her 
guest. 

Madame  Delmonti  was  an  American,  very  rich,  a 
good  deal  made  up,  but  still  pretty,  and  extremely 
well  preserved.  Signor  Delmonti,  an  Italian  bari 
tone,  whom  she  had  married,  and  supported  ever 
since,  was  useful  about  the  house,  as  he  now  proved 
by  standing  at  a  little  table  and  ladling  punch  into 
small  glasses,  which  were  distributed  among  the 

42 


A  Califomian 


guests  by  the  two  little  Delmonti  girls  in  green  silk 
frocks.  Madame  Delmonti,  with  her  rouged  cheeks 
and  merry  grey  eyes,  as  full  of  sparkle  as  they  had 
been  twenty  years  ago,  was  very  cordial  to  her  guest, 
asking  him,  as  they  stood  in  the  doorway,  whom  he 
would  like  best  to  meet. 

"Maud  Levy,  who  has  been  singing,"  she  said, 
"is  one  of  the  belles  in  Hebrew  society.  She  has  a 
fine  voice.  You  have  no  objection,  Mr.  Faraday, 
to  knowing  Jews?" 

Faraday  hastily  disclaimed  all  race  prejudices,  and 
she  continued,  discreetly  designating  the  ladies  on  the 
sofa: 

"There  are  two  delightful  girls.  Mrs.  Peck,  the 
blonde,  is  the  society  writer  for  the  Morning  Trumpet. 
She  is  an  elegant  woman  of  a  very  fine  Southern 
family,  but  she  has  had  misfortunes.  Her  marriage 
was  unhappy.  She  and  Peck  are  separated  now, 
and  she  supports  herself  and  her  two  children.  There 
was  no  hope  of  getting  alimony  out  of  that  man." 

"And  that  is  Genevieve  Ryan  beside  her,"  Madame 
Delmonti  went  on.  "I  think  you'd  like  Genevieve. 
She's  a  grand  girl.  Her  father,  you  know,  is  Barney 
Ryan,  one  of  our  millionaires.  He  made  his  money 
in  a  quick  turn  in  Con.  Virginia,  but  before  that  he 
used  to  drive  the  Marys ville  coach,  and  he  was  once 
a  miner.  He's  crazy  about  Genevieve  and  gives  her 
five  hundred  a  month  to  dress  on.  I'm  sure  you'll 
get  on  very  well  together.  She's  such  a  refined, 

pleasant  girl" and  Madame  Delmonti,  chattering 

her  praises  of  Barney  Ryan's  handsome  daughter, 
conducted  the  stranger  to  the  shrine. 

Miss  Genevieve  smiled  upon  him,  much  as  she 

43 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


had  upon  the  singer,  and  brushing  aside  her  skirts 
of  changeable  green  and  heliotrope  silk,  showed  him 
a  little  golden-legged  chair  beside  her.  Mrs.  Peck 
and  Madame  Delmonti  conversed  with  unusual  in 
sight  and  knowledge  on  the  singing  of  Maud  Levy, 
and  Faraday  was  left  to  conduct  the  conversation 
with  the  heiress  of  Barney  Ryan. 

She  was  a  large,  splendid-looking  girl,  very  much 
corseted,  with  an  ivory-tinted  skin,  eyes  as  clear  as 
a  young  child's  and  smooth  freshly  red  lips.  She  was 
a  good  deal  powdered  on  the  bridge  of  her  nose,  and 
her  rich  hair  was  slightly  tinted  with  some  reddish 
dye.  She  was  a  picture  of  health  and  material  well 
being.  Her  perfectly  fitting  clothes  sat  with  wrinkle- 
less  exactitude  over  a  figure  which  in  its  generous 
breadth  and  finely  curved  outline  might  have  com 
pared  with  that  of  the  Venus  of  Milo.  She  let  her 
eyes,  shadowed  slightly  by  the  white  lace  edge  of  her 
large  hat,  whereon  two  pink  roses  trembled  on  large 
stalks,  dwell  upon  Faraday  with  a  curious  and  frank 
interest  entirely  devoid  of  coquetry.  Her  manner, 
almost  boyish  in  its  simple  directness,  showed  the 
same  absence  of  this  feminine  trait.  While  she 
looked  like  a  goddess  dressed  by  Worth,  she  seemed 
merely  a  good-natured,  phlegmatic  girl  just  emerging 
from  her  teens. 

Faraday  had  made  the  first  commonplaces  of 
conversation,  when  she  asked,  eyeing  him  closely, 
"Do  you  like  it  out  here?" 

"Oh,  immensely,"  he  responded,  politely.  "It's 
such  a  fine  climate." 

"It  is  a  good  climate,"  admitted  Miss  Ryan,  with 
unenthusiastic  acquiescence;  "but  we  are  not  so 

44 


A  Californian 


proud  of  that  as  we  are  of  the  good  looks  of  the  Cali 
fornian  women.  Don't  you  think  the  women  are 
handsome?" 

Faraday  looked  into  her  clear  and  earnest  eyes. 
"Oh,  splendid,"  he  answered,  "especially  their  eyes." 

Miss  Ryan  appeared  to  demur  to  this  commenda 
tion.  "It's  generally  said  by  strangers  that  their 
figures  are  unusually  handsome.  Do  you  think 
they  are?" 

Faraday  agreed  to  this  too. 

"The  girls  in  the  East,"  said  Miss  Ryan,  sitting 
upright  with  a  creaking  sound,  and  drawing  her 
gloves  through  one  satin-smooth,  be  jeweled  hand, 
"are  very  thin,  aren't  they?  Here,  I  sometimes 
think"  —she  raised  her  eyes  to  his  in  deep  and  some 
what  anxious  query — "that  they  are  too  fat?" 

Faraday  gallantly  scouted  the  idea.  He  said  the 
California  woman  was  a  goddess.  For  the  first  time 
in  the  interview  Miss  Ryan  gave  a  little  laugh. 

"That's  what  all  you  Eastern  men  say,"  she  said. 
"They're  always  telling  me  I'm  a  goddess.  Even 
the  Englishmen  say  that." 

"Well,"  answered  Faraday,  surprised  at  his  own 
boldness,  "what  they  say  is  true." 

Miss  Ryan  silently  eyed  him  for  a  speculating  mo 
ment;  then,  averting  her  glance,  said,  pensively: 
"Perhaps  so;  but  I  don't  think  it's  so  stylish  to  be 
a  goddess  as  it  is  to  be  very  slim.  And  then,  you 

know "  Here  she  suddenly  broke  off,  her  eyes 

fixed  upon  the  crowd  of  ladies  that  blocked  an  op 
posite  doorway  in  exeunt.  "There's  mommer.  I 
guess  she  must  be  going  home,  and  I  suppose  I'd 
better  go  too,  and  not  keep  her  waiting." 

45 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


She  rose  as  she  spoke,  and  with  a  pat  of  her  hand 
adjusted  her  glimmering  skirts. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Faraday,"  she  said,  as  she  peered  down 
at  them,  "  I  hope  you'll  give  yourself  the  pleasure  of 
calling  on  me.  I'm  at  home  almost  any  afternoon 
after  five,  and  Tuesday  is  my  day.  Come  whenever 
you  please.  I'll  be  real  glad  to  see  you,  and  I  guess 
popper'd  like  to  talk  to  you  about  things  in  the  East. 
He's  been  in  Massachusetts  too." 

She  held  out  her  large  white  hand  and  gave  Fara 
day  a  vigorous  hand-shake. 

"I'm  glad  I  came  here  tonight,"  she  said,  smiling. 
"  I  wasn't  quite  decided,  but  I  thought  I'd  better,  as 
I  had  some  things  to  tell  Mrs.  Peck  for  next  Sunday's 
Trumpet.  If  I  hadn't  come,  I  wouldn't  have  met  you. 
You  needn't  escort  me  to  Madame  Delmonti.  I'd 
rather  go  by  myself.  I'm  not  a  bit  a  ceremonious 
person.  Good-by.  Be  sure  and  come  and  see  me." 

She  rustled  away,  exchanged  farewells  with 
Madame  Delmonti,  and,  by  a  movement  of  her 
head  in  his  direction,  appeared  to  be  speaking  of 
Faraday;  then  joining  a  fur-muffled  female  figure  near 
the  doorway,  swept  like  a  princess  out  of  the  room. 

For  a  week  after  Faraday's  meeting  with  Miss  Gene- 
vieve  Ryan,  he  had  no  time  to  think  of  giving  him 
self  the  pleasure  of  calling  upon  that  fair  and  flatter 
ing  young  lady.  The  position  which  he  had  come 
out  from  Boston  to  fill  was  not  an  unusually  exacting 
one,  but  Faraday,  who  was  troubled  with  a  New 
England  conscience,  and  a  certain  slowness  in  adapt 
ing  himself  to  new  conditions  of  life,  was  too  engrossed 
in  mastering  the  duties  of  his  clerkship  to  think  of 
loitering  about  the  chariot  wheels  of  beauty. 

46 


By  the  second  week,  however,  he  had  shaken  down 
into  the  new  rut,  and  a  favorable  opportunity  present 
ing  itself  in  a  sunny  Sunday  afternoon,  he  donned 
his  black  coat  and  high  hat  and  repaired  to  the  man 
sion  of  Barney  Ryan,  on  California  Street. 

When  Faraday  approached  the  house,  he  felt  quite 
timid,  so  imposingly  did  this  great  structure  loom  up 
from  the  simpler  dwellings  which  surrounded  it. 
Barney  Ryan  had  built  himself  a  palace,  and  ever  since 
the  day  he  had  first  moved  into  it  he  had  been  anxious 
to  move  out.  The  ladies  of  his  family  would  not 
allow  this,  and  so  Barney  endured  his  grandeur  as 
best  he  might.  It  was  a  great  wooden  house,  with 
immense  bay  windows  thrown  out  on  every  side,  and 
veiled  within  by  long  curtains  of  heavy  lace.  The 
sweep  of  steps  that  spread  so  proudly  from  the  por 
tico  was  flanked  by  two  sleeping  lions  in  stone,  both 
appearing,  by  the  savage  expressions  which  dis 
torted  their  visages,  to  be  suffering  from  terrifying 
dreams.  In  the  garden  the  spiked  foliage  of  the 
dark,  slender  dracsenas  and  the  fringed  fans  of 
giant  filamentosas  grew  luxuriantly  with  tropical 


The  large  drawing-room,  long,  and  looking  longer 
with  its  wide  mirrors,  was  even  more  golden  than 
Mrs.  Delmonti's.  There  were  gold  moldings  about 
the  mirrors  and  gold  mountings  to  the  chairs.  In 
deserts  of  gold  frames  appeared  small  oases  of  oil- 
painting.  Faraday,  hat  in  hand,  stood  some  time 
in  wavering  indecision,  wondering  in  which  of  the 
brocaded  and  gilded  chairs  he  would  look  least  like 
a  king  in  an  historical  play.  He  was  about  to  decide 
in  favor  of  a  pale  blue  satin  settee,  when  a  rustle 

47 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


behind  him  made  him  turn  and  behold  Miss  Gene- 
vieve,  magnificent  in  a  trailing  robe  of  the  faintest 
rose-pink  and  pearls,  with  diamond  ear-rings  in  her 
ears,  and  the  powder  that  she  had  hastily  rubbed  on 
her  face  still  lying  white  on  her  long  lashes.  She 
smiled  her  rare  smile  as  she  greeted  him,  and  sitting 
down  in  one  of  the  golden  chairs,  leaned  her  head 
against  the  back,  and  said,  looking  at  him  from 
under  lowered  lids: 

"Well,  I  thought  you  were  never  coming!" 

Faraday,  greatly  encouraged  by  this  friendly  recep 
tion,  made  his  excuses,  and  set  the  conversation  going. 
After  the  weather  had  been  exhausted,  the  topic  of 
the  Californian  in  his  social  aspect  came  up.  Fara 
day,  with  some  timidity,  ventured  a  question  on  the 
fashionable  life  in  San  Francisco.  A  shade  passed 
over  Miss  Ryan's  open  countenance. 

"You  know,  Mr.  Faraday,"  she  said,  explanator 
ily,  "I'm  not  exactly  in  society." 

"No?"  murmured  Faraday,  mightily  surprised, 
and  wondering  what  she  was  going  to  say  next. 

"Not  exactly,"  continued  Miss  Ryan,  moistening 
her  red  under  lip  in  a  pondering  moment — "not 
exactly  in  fash'nable  society.  Of  course  we  have 
our  friends.  But  gentlemen  from  the  East  that  I've 
met  have  always  been  so  surprised  when  I  told  them 
that  I  didn't  go  out  in  the  most  fash'nable  circles. 
They  always  thought  any  one  with  money  could  get 
right  in  it  here." 

4 Yes?"  said  Faraday,  whose  part  of  the  conversa 
tion  appeared  to  be  deteriorating  into  monosyllables. 

"Well,  you  know,  that's  not  the  case  at  all.  With 
all  popper's  money,  we've  never  been  able  to  get  a 

48 


real  good  footing.  It  seems  funny  to  outsiders, 
especially  as  popper  and  mommer  have  never  been 
divorced  or  anything.  We've  just  lived  quietly 
right  here  in  the  city  always.  But,"  she  said,  looking 
tentatively  at  Faraday  to  see  how  he  was  going  to 
take  the  statement,  "my  father's  a  Northerner.  He 
went  back  and  fought  in  the  war." 

"You  must  be  very  proud  of  that,"  said  Faraday, 
feeling  that  he  could  now  hazard  a  remark  with 
safety. 

This  simple  comment,  however,  appeared  to  sur 
prise  the  enigmatic  Miss  Ryan. 

"Proud  of  it?"  she  queried,  looking  in  suspended 
doubt  at  Faraday.  "Oh,  of  course  I'm  proud  that 
he  was  brave,  and  didn't  run  away  or  get  wounded; 
but  if  he'd  been  a  Southerner  we  would  have  been 
in  society  now."  She  looked  pensively  at  Faraday. 
"All  the  fashionable  people  are  Southerners,  you 
know.  We  would  have  been,  too,  if  we'd  have  been 
Southerners.  It's  being  Northerners  that  really  has 
been  such  a  drawback." 

"But  your  sympathies,"  urged  Faraday,  "aren't 
they  with  the  North?" 

Miss  Ryan  ran  the  pearl  fringe  of  her  tea-gown 
through  her  large,  handsome  hands.  "I  guess  so," 
she  said,  indifferently,  as  if  she  was  considering  the 
subject  for  the  first  time;  "  but  you  can't  expe6l  me  to 
have  any  very  violent  sympathies  about  a  war  that 
was  dead  and  buried  before  I  was  born." 

"I  don't  believe  you're  a  genuine  Northerner,  or 
Southerner  either,"  said  Faraday,  laughing. 

"I  guess  not,"  said  the  young  lady,  with  the  same 
placid  indifference.  "An  English  gentleman  whom 

49 


The  Spinners'  Book'  of  Fiction 


I  knew  real  well  last  year  said  the  sympathy  of  the 
English  was  all  with  the  Southerners.  He  said  they 
were  the  most  refined  people  in  this  country.  He  said 
they  were  thought  a  great  deal  of  in  England?"  She 
again  looked  at  Faraday  with  her  air  of  deprecating 
query,  as  if  she  half  expected  him  to  contradict  her. 

"  Who  was  this  extraordinarily  enlightened  being  ?" 
asked  Faraday. 

"Mr.  Harold  Courtney,  an  elegant  Englishman. 
They  said  his  grandfather  was  a  Lord — Lord  Has 
tings — but  you  never  can  be  sure  about  those  things.  I 
saw  quite  a  good  deal  of  him,  and  I  sort  of  liked 
him,  but  he  was  rather  quiet.  I  think  if  he'd  been 
an  American  we  would  have  thought  him  dull.  Here 
they  just  said  it  was  reserve.  We  all  thought " 

A  footstep  in  the  hall  outside  arrested  her  recital. 
The  door  of  the  room  was  opened,  and  a  handsome 
bonneted  head  appeared  in  the  aperture. 

"Oh,  Gen,"  said  this  apparition,  hastily — "excuse 
me;  I  didn't  know  you  had  your  company  in  there  ?" 

"Come  in,  mommer,"  said  Miss  Ryan,  politely; 
"I  want  to  make  you  acquainted  with  Mr.  Fara 
day.  He's  the  gentleman  I  met  at  Madame  Del- 
monti's  the  other  evening." 

Mrs.  Ryan,  accompanied  by  a  rich  rustling  of  silk, 
pushed  open  the  door,  revealing  herself  to  Faraday's 
admiring  eyes  as  a  fine-looking  woman,  fresh  in  tint, 
still  young,  of  a  stately  figure  and  imposing  presence. 
She  was  admirably  dressed  in  a  walking  costume  of 
dark  green,  and  wore  a  little  black  jet  bonnet  on  her 
slightly  waved  bright  brown  hair.  She  met  the 
visitor  with  an  extended  hand  and  a  frank  smile  of 
open  pleasure. 

50 


A  Californian 


"Genevieve  spoke  to  me  of  you,  Mr.  Faraday," 
she  said,  settling  down  into  a  chair  and  removing 
her  gloves.  "I'm  very  glad  you  managed  to  get 
around  here." 

Faraday  expressed  his  joy  at  having  been  able  to 
accomplish  the  visit. 

"We  don't  have  so  many  agreeable  gentlemen 
callers,"  said  Mrs.  Ryan,  "that  we  can  afford  to 
overlook  a  new  one.  If  you've  been  in  society,  you've 
perhaps  noticed,  Mr.  Faraday,  that  gentlemen  are 
somewhat  scarce." 

Faraday  said  he  had  not  been  in  society,  therefore 
had  not  observed  the  deficiency.  Mrs.  Ryan,  barely 
allowing  him  time  to  complete  his  sentence,  con 
tinued,  vivaciously: 

"Well,  Mr.  Faraday,  you'll  see  it  later.  We  en 
tertainers  don't  know  what  we  are  going  to  do  for 
the  lack  of  gentlemen.  When  we  give  parties  we 
ask  the  young  gentlemen,  and  they  all  come;  but 
they  won't  dance,  they  won't  talk,  they  won't  do 
anything  but  eat  and  drink  and  they  never  think 
of  paying  their  party  calls.  It's  disgraceful,  Mr. 
Faraday,"  said  Mrs.  Ryan,  smiling  brightly — "dis 
graceful!" 

Faraday  said  he  had  heard  that  in  the  East  the 
hostess  made  the  same  complaint.  Mrs.  Ryan,  with 
brilliant  fixed  eyes,  gave  him  a  breathing-space  to 
reply  in,  and  then  started  off  again,  with  a  con 
firmatory  nod  of  her  head: 

"Precisely,  Mr.  Faraday — just  the  case  here.  At 
Genevieve's  debut  party — an  elegant  affair — -Mrs. 
Peck  said  she'd  never  seen  a  finer  entertainment  in 
this  city — canvas  floors,  four  musicians,  champagne 

51 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


flowing  like  water.  My  husband,  Mr.  Faraday,  be 
lieves  in  giving  the  best  at  his  entertainments ;  there's 
not  a  mean  bone  in  Barney  Ryan's  body.  Why,  the 
men  all  got  into  the  smoking-room,  lit  their  cigars, 
and  smoked  there,  and  in  the  ballroom  were  the 
girls  sitting  around  the  walls,  and  not  more  than 
half  a  dozen  partners  for  them.  I  tell  you,  Mr. 
Ryan  was  mad.  He  just  went  up  there,  and  told 
them  to  get  up  and  dance  or  get  up  and  go  home — 
he  didn't  much  care  which.  There's  no  fooling  with 
Mr.  Ryan  when  he's  roused.  You  remember  how 
mad  popper  was  that  night,  Gen?" 

Miss  Ryan  nodded  an  assent,  her  eyes  full  of  smil 
ing  reminiscence.  She  had  listened  to  her  mother's 
story  with  unmoved  attention  and  evident  apprecia 
tion.  "Next  time  we  have  a  party,"  she  said,  looking 
smilingly  at  Faraday,  "Mr.  Faraday  can  come  and 
see  for  himself." 

"I  guess  it'll  be  a  long  time  before  we  have  another 
like  that,"  said  Mrs.  Ryan,  somewhat  grimly,  rising 
as  Faraday  rose  to  take  his  leave.  "Not  but  what," 
she  added,  hastily,  fearing  her  remark  had  seemed 
ungracious,  "we'll  hope  Mr.  Faraday  will  come  with 
out  waiting  for  parties." 

"But  we've  had  one  since  then,"  said  Miss  Ryan, 
as  she  placed  her  hand  in  his  in  the  pressure  of  fare 
well,  "that  laid  all  over  that  first  one." 

Having  been  pressed  to  call  by  both  mother  and 
daughter,  and  having  told  himself  that  Genevieve 
Ryan  was  "  an  interesting  study,"  Faraday,  after  some 
hesitation,  paid  a  second  visit  to  the  Ryan  mansion. 
Upon  this  occasion  the  Chinese  servant,  murmur 
ing  unintelligibly,  showed  a  rooted  aversion  to  his 

52 


A  Californian 


entering.  Faraday,  greatly  at  sea,  wondering  vaguely 
if  the  terrible  Barney  Ryan  had  issued  a  mandate  to 
his  hireling  to  refuse  him  admittance,  was  about  to 
turn  and  depart,  when  the  voice  of  Mrs.  Ryan  in  the 
hall  beyond  arrested  him.  Bidden  to  open  the  door, 
the  Mongolian  reluctantly  did  so  and  Faraday  was 
admitted. 

"Sing  didn't  want  to  let  you  in,"  said  Mrs.  Ryan 
when  they  had  gained  the  long  gold  drawing-room, 
"because  Genevieve  was  out.  He  never  lets  any 
gentlemen  in  when  she's  not  at  home.  He  thinks 
I'm  too  old  to  have  them  come  to  see  me." 

Then  they  sat  down,  and  after  a  little  preliminary 
chat  on  the  Chinese  character  and  the  Californian 
climate,  Mrs.  Ryan  launched  forth  into  her  favorite 
theme  of  discourse. 

"  Genevieve  will  be  so  sorry  to  miss  you,"  she  said; 
"she's  always  so  taken  by  Eastern  gentlemen.  They 
admire  her,  too,  immensely.  I  can't  tell  you  of  the 
compliments  we've  heard  directly  and  indiredlly 
that  they've  paid  her.  Of  course  I  can  see  that  she's 
an  unusually  fine-looking  girl,  and  very  accomplished. 
Mr.  Ryan  and  I  have  spared  nothing  in  her  educa 
tion — nothing.  At  Madame  de  Vivier's  academy  for 
young  ladies — one  of  the  most  select  in  the  State— 
Madame's  husband's  one  of  the  French  nobility, 
and  she  always  had  to  support  him — Genevieve  took 
every  extra — music,  languages,  and  drawing.  Pro 
fessor  Rodriguez,  who  taught  her  the  guitar,  said 
that  never  outside  of  Spain  had  he  heard  such  a  touch. 
4  Senora,'  he  says  to  me — that's  his  way  of  expressing 
himself,  and  it  sounds  real  cute  the  way  he  says  it— 
'Senora,  is  there  not  some  Spanish  blood  in  this 

53 


Fiction 


child  ?  No  one  without  Spanish  blood  could  touch  the 
strings  that  way.'  Afterwards  when  Demaroni  taught 
her  the  mandolin,  it  was  just  the  same.  He  could  not 
believe  she  had  not  had  teachingbefore.  Then  Madame 
Mezzenott  gave  her  a  term's  lessons  on  the  bandurria, 
and  she  said  there  never  was  such  talent;  she  might 
have  made  a  fortune  on  the  concert  stage." 

"Yes,  undoubtedly,"  Faraday  squeezed  in,  as 
Mrs.  Ryan  drew  a  breath. 

"Indeed,  Mr.  Faraday,  everybody  has  remarked 
her  talents.  It  isn't  you  alone.  All  the  Eastern  gen 
tlemen  we  have  met  have  said  that  the  musical  tal 
ents  of  the  Californian  young  ladies  were  astonishing. 
They  all  agree  that  Genevieve's  musical  genius  is 
remarkable.  Everybody  declares  that  there  is  no 
one — not  among  the  Spaniards  themselves — who 
sings  La  Paloma  as  Gen  does.  Professor  Spighetti 
instructed  her  in  that.  He  was  a  wonderful  teacher. 
I  never  saw  such  a  method.  But  we  had  to  give  him 
up  because  he  fell  in  love  with  Gen.  That's  the 
worst  of  it — the  teachers  are  always  falling  in  love  with 
her;  and  with  her  prospects  and  position  we  naturally 
expect  something  better.  Of  course  it's  been  very 
hard  to  keep  her.  I  say  to  Mr.  Ryan,  as  each  winter 
comes  to  an  end,  'Well,  popper,  another  season's 
over  and  we've  still  got  our  Gen.'  We  feel  that  we 
can't  be  selfish  and  hope  to  keep  her  always,  and, 
with  so  many  admirers,  we  realize  that  we  must  soon 
lose  her,  and  try  to  get  accustomed  to  the  idea." 

"Of  course,  of  course,"  murmured  Faraday,  sym 
pathetically,  mentally  picturing  Mrs.  Ryan  keeping 
away  the  suitors  as  Rizpah  kept  the  eagles  and  vul 
tures  off  her  dead  sons. 

54 


A  Califomian 


"There  was  a  Mr.  Courtney  who  was  very  atten 
tive  last  year.  His  grandfather  was  an  English  lord. 
We  had  to  buy  a  Peerage  to  find  out  if  he  was  genuine, 
and,  as  he  was,  we  had  him  quite  often  to  the  house. 
He  paid  Genevieve  a  good  deal  of  attention,  but 
toward  the  end  of  the  season  he  said  he  had  to  go  back 
to  England  and  see  his  grandfather — his  father  was 
dead — and  left  without  saying  anything  definite.  He 
told  me  though,  that  he  was  coming  back.  I  fully 
expe6l  he  will,  though  Mr.  Ryan  doesn't  seem  to 
think  so.  Genevieve  felt  rather  put  out  about  it  for 
a  time.  She  thought  he  hadn't  been  upright  to  see 
her  so  constantly  and  not  say  anything  definite.  But 
she  doesn't  understand  the  subserviency  of  English 
men  to  their  elders,  You  know,  we  have  none  of 
that  in  this  country.  If  my  son  Eddie  wanted  to 
marry  a  typewriter,  Mr.  Ryan  could  never  prevent 
it.  I  fully  expe6l  to  see  Mr.  Courtney  again.  I'd 
like  you  to  meet  him,  Mr.  Faraday.  I  think  you'd 
agree  very  well.  He's  just  such  a  quiet,  reserved 
young  man  as  you." 

When,  after  this  interview,  Faraday  descended  the 
broad  steps  between  the  sleeping  lions,  he  did  not 
feel  so  good-tempered  as  he  had  done  after  his  first 
visit.  He  recalled  to  mind  having  heard  that  Mrs. 
Ryan,  before  her  marriage,  had  been  a  school 
teacher,  and  he  said  to  himself  that  if  she  had  no 
more  sense  then  than  she  had  now,  her  pupils  must 
have  received  a  fearful  and  wonderful  education. 

At  Madame  Delmonti's  conversazione,  given  a  few 
evenings  later,  Faraday  again  saw  Miss  Ryan.  On 
the  first  of  these  occasions  this  independent  young 
lady  was  dressed  simply  in  a  high-necked  gown  and 

55 


a  hat.  This  evening  with  her  habitual  disregard  of 
custom  and  convention,  some  whim  had  caused  her 
to  array  herself  in  full  gala  attire,  and,  habited  in  a 
gorgeous  costume  of  white  silk  and  yellow  velvet, 
with  a  glimmer  of  diamonds  round  the  low  neck, 
she  was  startling  in  her  large  magnificence. 

Jack  Faraday  approached  her  somewhat  awe- 
stricken,  but  her  gravely  boyish  manner  immediately 
put  him  at  his  ease.  Talking  with  her  over  common 
places,  he  wondered  what  she  would  say  if  she  knew 
of  her  mother's  conversation  with  him.  As  if  in 
answer  to  the  unspoken  thought,  she  suddenly  said, 
fixing  him  with  intent  eyes: 

"  Mommer  said  she  told  you  of  Mr.  Courtney.  Do 
you  think  he'll  come  back?" 

Faraday,  his  breath  taken  away  by  the  suddenness 
of  the  attack,  felt  the  blood  run  to  his  hair,  and  stam 
mered  a  reply. 

"Well,  you  know,"  she  said,  leaning  toward  him 
confidentially,  "I  don't.  Mommer  is  possessed  with  the 
idea  that  he  will.  But  neither  popper  nor  I  think  so. 
I  got  sort  of  annoyed  with  the  way  he  a6led — hanging 
about  for  a  whole  winter,  and  then  running  away  to 
see  his  grandfather,  like  a  little  boy  ten  years  old! 
I  like  men  that  are  their  own  masters.  But  I  sup 
pose  I  would  have  married  him.  You  see,  he  would 
have  been  a  lord  when  his  grandfather  died.  It  was 
genuine — we  saw  it  in  the  Peerage. 

She  looked  into  Faraday's  eyes.  Her  own  were  as 
clear  and  deep  as  mountain  springs.  Was  Miss  Gene- 
vieve  Ryan  the  most  absolutely  honest  and  outspoken 
young  woman  that  had  ever  lived,  or  was  she  some 
subtle  and  unusual  form  of  Pacific  Slope  coquette  ? 

56 


A  Califomian 


"Popper  was  quite  mad  about  it,"  she  continued. 
"He  thought  Mr.  Courtney  was  an  ordinary  sort  of 
person,  anyway.  I  didn't.  I  just  thought  him  dull, 
and  I  suppose  he  couldn't  help  that.  Mommer 
wanted  to  go  over  to  England  last  summer.  She 
thought  we  might  stumble  on  him  over  there.  But 
popper  wouldn't  let  her  do  it.  He  sent  us  to  Alaska 
instead."  She  paused,  and  gave  a  smiling  bow  to 
an  acquaintance.  "Doesn't  Mrs.  Peck  look  sweet 
tonight?"  She  designated  the  society  editress  of 
the  Morning  Trumpet,  whose  fragile  figure  was 
encased  in  a  pale  blue  Empire  costume.  "And  that 
lady  over  by  the  door,  with  the  gold  crown  in  her 
hair,  the  stout  one  in  red,  is  Mrs.  Wheatley,  a  pro 
fessional  Delsarte  teacher.  She's  a  great  friend  of 
mine  and  gives  me  Delsarte  twice  a  week." 

And  Miss  Genevieve  Ryan  nodded  to  the  dis 
penser  of  "Delsarte,"  a  large  and  florid  woman,  who, 
taking  her  stand  under  a  spreading  palm  tree,  began 
to  declaim  "The  Portrait"  of  Owen  Meredith,  and 
in  the  recital  of  the  dead  lady's  iniquitous  conduct 
the  conversation  was  brought  to  a  close. 

From  its  auspicious  opening,  Faraday's  acquaint 
ance  with  the  Ryans  ripened  and  developed  with  a 
speed  which  characterizes  the  growth  of  friendship 
and  of  fruit  in  the  genial  Californian  atmosphere. 
Almost  before  he  felt  that  he  had  emerged  from  the 
position  of  a  stranger  he  had  slipped  into  that  of  an 
intimate.  He  fell  into  the  habit  of  visiting  the  Ryan 
mansion  on  California  Street  on  Sunday  afternoons. 
It  became  a  custom  for  him  to  dine  there  en  famille 
at  least  once  a  week.  The  simplicity  and  light- 
hearted  good-nature  of  these  open-handed  and 

t?¥*f 

57 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


kindly  people  touched  and  charmed  him.  There 
was  not  a  trace  of  the  snob  in  Faraday.  He  accepted 
the  lavish  and  careless  hospitality  of  Barney  Ryan's 
"palatial  residence,"  as  the  newspapers  delighted  to 
call  it,  with  a  spirit  as  frankly  pleased  as  that  in 
which  it  was  offered. 

He  came  of  an  older  civilization  than  that  which 
had  given  Barney  Ryan's  daughter  her  frankness 
and  her  force,  and  it  did  not  cross  his  mind  that  the 
heiress  of  millions  might  cast  tender  eyes  upon  the 
penniless  sons  of  New  England  farmers.  He  said 
to  himself  with  impatient  recklessness  that  he  ought 
not  to  and  would  not  fall  in  love  with  her.  There 
was  too  great  a  distance  between  them.  It  would 
be  King  Cophetua  and  the  beggar-maid  reversed. 
Clerks  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  month  were 
not  supposed  to  aspire  to  only  daughters  of  bonanza 
kings  in  the  circle  from  which  Faraday  had  come. 
So  he  visited  the  Ryans,  assuring  himself  that  he 
was  a  friend  of  the  family,  who  would  dance  at  Miss 
Genevieve's  wedding  with  the  lightest  of  hearts. 

The  Chinese  butler  had  grown  familiar  with  Fara 
day's  attractive  countenance  and  his  unabbreviated 
English,  when  late  one  warm  and  sunny  afternoon 
the  young  man  pulled  the  bell  of  the  great  oaken 
door  of  the  Ryans'  lion-guarded  home.  In  answer 
to  his  queries  for  the  ladies,  he  learned  that  they  were 
out;  but  the  Mongolian  functionary,  after  surveying 
him  charily  through  the  crack  of  the  door,  admitted 
that  Mr.  Ryan  was  within,  and  conducted  the  visitor 
into  his  presence. 

Barney  Ryan,  suffering  from  a  slight  sprain  in  his 
ankle,  sat  at  ease  in  a  little  sitting-room  in  the  back 

58 


of  the  house.  Mr.  Ryan,  being  irritable  and  in  some 
pain,  the  women-folk  had  relaxed  the  severity  of  their 
dominion,  and  allowed  him  to  sit  unchecked  in  his 
favorite  costume  for  the  home  circle — shirt  sleeves 
and  a  tall  beaver  hat.  Beside  him  on  the  table  stood 
a  bare  and  undecorated  array  of  bottles,  a  glass,  and 
a  silver  water- pitcher. 

Mr.  Ryan  was  now  some  years  beyond  sixty,  but 
had  that  tremendous  vigor  of  frame  and  constitu 
tion  that  distinguished  the  pioneers — an  attribute 
strangely  lacking  in  their  puny  and  degenerate  sons. 
This  short  and  chunky  old  man,  with  his  round, 
thick  head,  bristling  hair  and  beard,  and  huge  red 
neck,  had  still  a  fiber  as  tough  as  oak.  He  looked 
coarse,  uncouth,  and  stupid,  but  in  his  small  gray 
eyes  shone  the  alert  and  unconquerable  spirit  which 
marked  the  pioneers  as  the  giants  of  the  West,  and 
which  had  carried  him  forward  over  every  obstacle 
to  the  summit  of  his  ambitions.  Barney  Ryan  was 
restless  in  his  confinement;  for,  despite  his  age  and 
the  completeness  of  his  success,  his  life  was  still 
with  the  world  of  men  where  the  bull-necked  old 
miner  was  a  king.  At  home  the  women  rather  dom 
ineered  over  him,  and  unconsciously  made  him  feel 
his  social  deficiencies.  At  home,  too,  the  sorrow  and 
the  pride  of  his  life  were  always  before  him — his  son, 
a  weak  and  dissipated  boy;  and  his  daughter,  who 
had  inherited  his  vigor  and  his  spirit  with  a  beauty 
that  had  descended  to  her  from  some  forgotten 
peasant  girl  of  the  Irish  bogs. 

Faraday,  with  his  power  of  listening  interminably, 
and  his  intelligent  comments,  was  a  favorite  of  old 
Ryan's.  He  greeted  him  with  a  growling  welcome; 

59 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


isg 


and  then,  civilities  being  interchanged,  called  to  the 
Chinaman  for  another  glass.  This  menial,  rubbing 
off  the  long  mirrors  that  decorated  the  walls,  would 
not  obey  the  mandate  till  it  had  been  roared  at  him 
by  the  wounded  lion  in  a  tone  which  made  the  chan 
delier  rattle. 

"I  never  can  make  those  infernal  idiots  understand 
me,"  said  old  Ryan,  plaintively.  "They  won't  do  a 
thing  I  tell  them.  It  takes  the  old  lady  to  manage 
'em.  She  makes  them  skip." 

Then  after  some  minutes  of  discourse  on  more  or 
less  uninteresting  matters,  the  weary  old  man,  glad 
of  a  listener,  launched  forth  into  domestic  topics. 

"Gen  and  the  old  lady  are  out  buying  new  togs. 
I  got  a  letter  here  that'll  astonish  them  when  they 
get  back.  It's  from  that  English  cuss,  Courtney. 
D'ye  ever  hear  about  him?  He  was  hanging  about 
Genevieve  all  last  winter.  And  this  letter  says  he's 
coming  back,  that  his  grandfather's  dead,  and  he's 
a  lord  now,  and  he's  coming  back.  Do  you  mind 
that  now,  Faraday?"  he  said,  looking  with  eyes  full 
of  humor  at  the  young  man. 

Faraday  expressed  a  sharp  surprise. 

"You  know,  Jack,"  continued  the  old  man,  "we're 
trained  up  to  having  these  high-priced  Englishmen 
come  out  here  and  eat  our  dinners,  and  sleep  in  our 
spare  rooms,  and  drink  our  wines  and  go  home,  and 
when  they  meet  us  there  forget  they've  ever  seen  us 
before;  but  we  ain't  trained  up  to  havin'  'em  come 
back  this  way,  and  it's  hard  to  get  accustomed  to  it." 

"It's  not  surprising,"  said  Faraday,  coldly. 

"  I'm  not  so  dead  sure  of  that.  But  I  can  tell  you 
the  old  lady'll  be  wild  about  this." 

60 


"Does  Mrs.  Ryan  like  him  so  much?"  said  the 
visitor,  still  coldly. 

"All  women  like  a  lord,  and  Mrs.  Ryan  ain't  dif 
ferent  from  the  rest  of  her  sex.  She's  dead  stuck  on 
Gen  marrying  him.  I'm  not  myself,  Jack.  I'm 
no  Anglomaniac ;  an  American's  good  enough  for  me. 
I'm  not  spoiling  to  see  my  money  going  to  patch  up 
the  roof  of  the  ancestral  castle  of  the  Courtneys,  or 
pay  their  ancestral  debts — not  by  a  long  chalk." 

"Do  you  think  he's  coming  back  to  borrow  money 
from  you  to  pay  off  the  ancestral  debts?"  asked 
Faraday. 

"Not  to  borrow,  Jack.  Oh  no,  not  to  borrow — 
to  get  it  for  keeps — it,  and  Genevieve  with  it.  And 
I  don't  just  see  how  I'm  to  prevent  it.  Gen  don't 
seem  to  care  much,  but  the  old  lady's  got  it  on  her 
mind  that  she'd  like  to  have  a  lord  in  the  family,  no 
matter  how  high  they  come;  and  she  can  work  on 
Gen.  Last  summer  she  wanted  to  go  after  him — 
wanted  to  track  him  to  his  lair;  but  I  thought  she 
might's  well  stop  there,  and  put  m'  foot  down.  Gen 
don't  seem  to  care  about  him  one  way  or  the  other, 
but  then  'Lady  Genevieve'  sounds  pretty  nice " 

Here  a  rustle  of  millinery,  approaching  through  the 
drawing-room  beyond,  cut  short  old  Ryan's  con 
fidences.  Faraday  stood  up  to  receive  the  ladies, 
who  entered  jubilant  and  unwearied  from  an  after 
noon's  shopping.  Genevieve,  a  magnificent  princess, 
with  the  air  of  fashion  given  by  perfectly  setting 
clothes,  much  brown  fur  and  velvet,  a  touch  of  yel 
low  lace,  and  a  quantity  of  fresh  violets  pinned  to  her 
corsage,  looked  as  if  she  would  make  a  very  fine 
Lady  Genevieve. 

61 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


As  soon  as  she  heard  the  news  she  demanded  the 
letter,  and  perused  it  intently,  Faraday  covertly 
watching  her.  Raising  her  eyes,  she  met  his  and 
said,  with  a  little  mocking  air,  "Well,  Mr.  Faraday, 
and  what  do  you  think  of  that?" 

"That  your  mother  seems  to  have  been  right," 
said  Faraday,  steadily  eyeing  her.  An  expression  of 
chagrin  and  disappointment,  rapid  but  unmistak 
able,  crossed  her  face,  dimming  its  radiance  like  a 
breath  on  a  mirror.  She  gave  a  little  toss  to  her 
head,  and  turning  away  toward  an  adjacent  looking- 
glass,  took  off  her  veil  and  settled  her  hat. 

Mrs.  Ryan  watched  her  with  glowing  pride,  al 
ready  seeing  her  in  fancy  a  member  of  the  British 
aristocracy;  but  old  Ryan  looked  rather  downcast, 
as  he  generally  did  when  confronted  by  the  triumph 
ant  gorgeousness  of  the  feminine  members  of  his 
household.  Faraday,  too,  experienced  a  sudden  de 
pression  of  spirits  so  violent  and  so  uncalled  for  that 
if  he  had  had  room  for  any  other  feeling  he  would 
have  been  intensely  surprised.  Barney  Ryan,  at  the 
prospect  of  having  to  repair  the  breaches  in  the 
Courtney  exchequer  and  ancestral  roof-tree,  may 
have  experienced  a  pardonable  dejection.  But  why 
should  Faraday,  who  assured  himself  a  dozen  times 
a  day  that  he  merely  admired  Miss  Genevieve,  as 
any  man  might  admire  a  charming  and  handsome 
girl,  feel  so  desperate  a  despondency  ? 

To  prove  to  himself  that  his  gloom  did  not  rise 
from  the  cause  that  he  knew  it  did  rise  from,  Fara 
day  continued  to  be  a  constant  guest  at  the  Ryan 
mansion,  continued  to  see  Miss  Genevieve  at  Madame 
Delmonti's  and  at  the  other  small  social  gatherings, 

62 


where  the  presentable  young  New  Englander  found 
himself  quite  a  lion.  When  Mrs.  Ryan  saw  him 
alone  she  flattered  his  superior  intelligence  and  ex 
perience  of  the  world  by  asking  his  opinion  of  the 
approaching  Lord  Hastings's  matrimonial  plans.  This 
frank  and  outspoken  lady  was  on  the  thorns  of  un 
certainty,  Lord  Hastings's  flight  on  his  former  visit 
having  shaken  her  faith  in  him.  Quite  unconsciously 
she  impressed  upon  Faraday  how  completely  both 
she  and  Genevieve  had  come  to  trust  him  as  a  tried 
friend. 

With  the  exaltation  of  a  knight  of  old,  Faraday 
felt  that  their  trust  would  never  be  misplaced.  He 
answered  Mrs.  Ryan's  anxious  queries  with  all  the 
honesty  of  the  calmest  friendship.  Alone  in  the 
great  gold  drawing-room,  he  talked  to  Genevieve 
on  books,  on  music,  on  fashion,  on  society — on  all 
subjects  but  that  of  love.  And  all  the  while  he  felt 
like  the  nightingale  who  sings  its  sweetest  music 
while  pressing  its  breast  against  a  thorn. 

Lord  Hastings  seemed  to  have  lost  no  time  in  re 
pairing  to  the  side  of  the  fair  lady  who  was  supposed 
to  be  the  object  of  his  fondest  devotions,  and  whom 
destiny  appeared  to  have  selected  as  the  renovator 
of  Courtney  Manor.  Four  weeks  from  the  day 
Faraday  had  heard  of  his  intended  visit,  the  Bos- 
tonian  received  a  letter  from  Mrs.  Ryan  bidding  him 
to  dinner  to  meet  the  illustrious  guest.  It  seemed  to 
Faraday  that  to  go  to  see  the  newcomer  in  converse 
with  Genevieve,  beautiful  in  her  costliest  robes,  to 
view  the  approving  smiles  of  Mrs.  Ryan,  and  per 
haps  the  happy  blushes  of  Miss  Ryan,  was  the  manly 
and  upright  course  for  one  who  could  never  be  more 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


than  the  avowed  friend  and  silent  worshipper  of 
Barney  Ryan's  only  daughter. 

Arriving  ten  minutes  late,  he  found  the  party  al 
ready  at  the  table.  It  was  an  inflexible  rule  of 
Barney  Ryan's  to  sit  down  to  dinner  at  the  stroke 
of  half-past  six,  whether  his  guests  were  assembled 
or  not — a  rule  which  even  his  wife's  cajoleries  and 
commands  were  powerless  to  combat. 

Tonight  the  iron  old  man  might  well  regard  with 
pride  the  luxury  and  splendor  that  crowned  a  turbu 
lent  career  begun  in  nipping  poverty.  The  round 
table,  glowing  beneath  the  lights  of  the  long  crystal 
chandeliers,  sparkled  with  cut-glass,  and  shone  with 
antique  silverware,  while  in  the  center  a  mass  of 
pale  purple  orchids  spread  their  fragile  crepe-like 
petals  from  a  fringe  of  fern.  Opposite  him,  still  un- 
faded,  superbly  dressed,  and  admirably  self-pos 
sessed,  was  his  smiling  consort,  toward  whom,  what 
ever  his  pride  in  her  might  have  been,  his  feelings 
this  evening  were  somewhat  hostile,  as  the  ambitious 
and  determined  lady  had  forced  him  to  don  regula 
tion  evening  dress,  arrayed  in  which  Barney's  peace 
of  mind  and  body  both  fled. 

On  either  side  of  the  table  sat  his  son  and  daughter, 
the  latter  handsomer  than  Faraday  had  ever  seen 
her,  her  heavy  dress  of  ivory-tinted  silk  no  whiter 
than  her  neck,  a  diamond  aigret  trembling  like  spray 
in  her  hair.  Her  brother  Eddie,  a  year  and  a  half  her 
senior,  looked  as  if  none  of  the  blood  of  this  vigorous 
strong-thewed,  sturdy  stock  could  run  in  his  veins. 
He  was  a  pale  and  sickly  looking  lad,  with  a  weak, 
vulgar  face,  thin  hair  and  red  eyelids.  Faraday  had 
only  seen  him  once  or  twice  before,  and  judged  from 

64 


A  Califomian 


remarks  made  to  him  by  acquaintances  of  the  family 
that  Eddie  did  not  often  honor  the  parental  roof 
with  his  presence.  Eddie's  irregular  career  appeared 
to  be  the  one  subject  on  which  the  family  maintained 
an  immovable  and  melancholy  reserve.  The  dis 
appointment  in  his  only  son  was  the  bitter  drop  in 
Barney  Ryan's  cup. 

There  were  other  guests  at  the  table.  Faraday 
received  a  coy  bow  from  Mrs.  Peck,  who  had  given 
her  hair  an  extra  bleaching  for  this  occasion,  till  her 
pinched  and  powdered  little  face  looked  out  from 
under  an  orange-colored  thatch;  Mrs.  Wheatley  was 
there  too,  with  a  suggestion  of  large  white  shoulders 
shining  through  veilings  of  black  gauze;  and  with  an 
air  of  stately  pride,  Mrs.  Ryan  presented  him  to  Lord 
Hastings.  This  young  man,  sitting  next  Gene  vie  ve, 
was  a  tall,  fair,  straight-featured  Englishman  of 
gravely  unresponsive  manners.  In  the  severe  per 
fection  of  his  immaculate  evening  dress  he  looked  a 
handsome,  well-bred  young  fellow  of  twenty-five  or 
six. 

As  the  late  guest  dropped  into  his  seat,  the  inter 
rupted  conversation  regathered  and  flowed  again. 
Barney  Ryan  said  nothing.  He  never  spoke  while 
eating,  and  rarely  talked  when  women  were  present. 
Genevieve  too  was  quiet,  responding  with  a  gently 
absent  smile,  when  her  cavalier,  turning  upon  her  his 
cold  and  expressionless  steely-blue  eyes,  addressed  to 
her  some  short  regulation  remark  on  the  weather, 
or  the  boredom  of  his  journey  across  the  plains. 
The  phlegmatic  calm  of  his  demeanor  remained  in- 
ta6l,  even  under  the  coquettish  onslaughts  of  Mrs. 
Peck  and  Mrs.  Wheatley,  who  extracted  from  him 

65 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


with  wheedling  perseverance  his  opinions  on  the  State, 
the  climate,  and  the  country.  Lord  Hastings  replied 
with  iron-bound  and  unsmiling  brevity,  his  wide 
cold  glance  resting  with  motionless  attention  upon 
the  painted  physiognomy  of  Mrs.  Peck  and  the  broad 
and  buxom  one  of  Mrs.  Wheatley,  and  his  head 
turning  with  dignified  difficulty  in  his  exceedingly 
high  and  tight  collar,  as  one  and  the  other  assailed 
him  with  queries.  Meanwhile  the  object  of  his 
journey,  slowly  moving  her  great  fan  of  white  ostrich 
feathers,  looked  across  the  table  at  Faraday  and 
made  a  little  surreptitious  moue. 

The  conversation  soon  became  absorbed  by  the 
two  married  ladies,  Faraday,  and  Lord  Hastings. 
Only  the  Ryans  were  silent,  Genevieve  now  and 
then  throwing  a  lazy  sentence  into  the  vortex 
of  talk,  and  Mrs.  Ryan  being  occupied  in  lending  a 
proud  ear  to  the  coruscations  of  wit  that  sparkled 
around  the  board,  or  in  making  covert  gestures  to 
the  soft-footed  Mongols,  who  moved  with  deft  noise- 
lessness  about  the  table.  Eddie  Ryan,  like  his  father, 
rarely  spoke  in  society.  In  the  glare  of  the  chan 
delier  he  sat  like  a  strange  uncomfortable  guest,  taking 
no  notice  of  any  one.  Toward  the  end  of  the  feast 
he  conversed  in  urgent  whispers  with  his  mother— 
a  conversation  which  ended  in  her  surreptitiously 
giving  him  her  keys  under  the  edge  of  the  table.  Be 
fore  coffee,  Eddie  left,  on  the  plea  of  an  important 
engagement,  retiring  through  the  drawing-room, 
softly  jingling  the  keys. 

After  this  dinner,  when  Lord  Hastings's  presence 
had  banished  all  his  doubts,  when  the  young  Eng 
lishman's  attractive  appearance  had  impressed  itself 

66 


upon  his  jealous  eye,  and  Genevieve's  gentle  indif 
ference  had  seemed  to  him  but  a  modest  form  of 
encouragement,  Faraday  found  but  little  time  to 
pay  visits  to  the  hospitable  home  of  Barney  Ryan. 

The  family  friend  that  they  had  all  so  warmly  wel 
comed  and  taken  to  their  hearts  withdrew  himself 
quietly  but  firmly  from  their  cheerful  circle.  When, 
at  rare  intervals,  he  did  drop  in  upon  them,  he 
pleaded  important  business  engagements  as  the 
reason  of  his  inability  to  accept  their  numerous  in 
vitations  to  dinners  and  theater  parties.  After  these 
mendacious  statements  he  would  wend  a  gloomy 
way  homeward  to  his  Pine  Street  boarding-house, 
and  there  spend  the  evening  pretending  to  read, 
and  cursing  the  fate  which  had  ever  brought  him 
within  the  light  of  Genevieve's  beaux  yeux.  The 
fable  of  being  the  family  friend  was  quite  shattered. 
Faraday  had  capitulated. 

Nearly  two  months  after  the  dinner,  when  rumors 
of  Genevieve  Ryan's  engagement  to  Lord  Hastings 
were  in  lively  circulation,  Faraday  called  at  the  lion- 
guarded  mansion  on  California  Street,  and,  in  an 
swering  to  his  regulation  request  for  the  ladies,  re 
ceived  the  usual  unintelligible  Chinese  rejoinder, 
and  was  shown  into  the  gold  drawing-room.  There, 
standing  in  front  of  a  long  mirror,  looking  at  her 
skirts  with  an  eye  of  pondering  criticism,  was  Miss 
Genevieve,  dressed  to  go  out.  She  caught  sight  of 
him  in  the  glass,  turned  abruptly,  and  came  forward, 
a  color  in  her  face. 

"Is  that  you?"  she  said,  holding  out  her  hand. 
"I  am  so  glad.  I  thought  it  was  somebody  else." 
Having  thus,  with  her  customary  candor,  signified 

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to  Faraday  that  she  was  expelling  Lord  Hastings, 
she  sat  down  facing  him,  and  said,  abruptly,  "Why 
haven't  you  been  here  for  so  long?" 

Faraday  made  the  usual  excuses,  and  did  not 
quail  before  her  cold  and  steady  eyes. 

"That's  rather  funny,"  she  said,  as  he  concluded, 
"for  now  you're  used  to  your  new  position,  and  it 
must  go  more  easily,  and  yet  you  have  less  time  to 
see  your  friends  than  you  did  at  first." 

Faraday  made  more  excuses,  and  wondered  that 
she  should  take  a  cruel  pleasure  in  such  small 
teasing. 

"I  thought  p'r'aps,"  she  said,  still  regarding  him 
with  an  unflinching  scrutiny,  her  face  grave  and  al 
most  hard,  "that  you'd  begun  to  find  us  too  Western, 
that  the  novelty  had  worn  off,  that  our  ways  were 
too — too — what  shall  I  say  ? — too  wild  and  woolly." 

A  flush  of  anger  ran  over  Faraday's  face.  "Your 
suppositions  were  neither  just  nor  true,"  he  said, 
coldly. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  continued,  with  a  care 
less  movement  of  her  head,  and  speaking  in  the  high, 
indifferent  tone  that  a  woman  adopts  when  she 
wishes  to  be  exasperating;  "you  needn't  get  mad. 
Lots  of  Eastern  people  feel  that  way.  They  come 
out  here  and  see  us  constantly,  and  make  friends 
with  us,  and  then  go  back  and  laugh  at  us,  and  tell 
their  friends  what  barbarians  we  are.  It's  customary, 
and  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of." 

"Do  you  suppose  that  I  am  that  sort  of  an  Eastern 
person?"  asked  Faraday,  quietly. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  doubtfully.  "I  didn't 
think  you  were  at  first,  but  now " 

68 


"But  now  you  do.    Why?" 

"Because  you  don't  come  here  any  more,"  she 
said,  with  a  little  air  of  triumph.  'You're  tired  of 
us,  The  novelty  is  over  and  so  are  the  visits." 

Faraday  arose,  too  bitterly  annoyed  for  speech. 
Genevieve,  rising  too,  and  touching  her  skirts  with 
an  arranging  hand,  continued,  apparently  uncon 
scious  of  the  storm  she  was  rousing : 

"And  yet  it  seems  odd  that  you  should  find  such 
a  difference.  Lord  Hastings,  now,  who's  English, 
and  much  more  conventional,  thinks  the  people  here 
just  as  refined  and  particular  as  any  other  Americans." 

"It's  evident,"  said  Faraday,  in  a  voice  roughened 
with  anger,  "that  Lord  Hastings's  appreciation  of 
the  refinement  of  the  Americans  is  only  equaled  by 
your  admiration  for  the  talents  of  the  English." 

"I  do  like  them,"  said  Genevieve,  dubiously, 
shaking  her  head,  as  if  she  was  admitting  a  not  en 
tirely  creditable  taste,  and  looking  away  from  him. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.  Faraday  fastened 
his  eyes  upon  her  in  a  look  of  passionate  confession 
that  in  its  powerful  pleading  drew  her  own  back  to 
his. 

"You're  as  honest  as  you  are  cruel,"  he  said,  al 
most  in  a  whisper. 

She  made  no  reply,  but  turned  her  head  sharply 
away,  as  if  in  sudden  embarrassment.  Then,  in 
answer  to  his  conventionally  murmured  good-byes, 
she  looked  back,  and  he  saw  her  face  radiant,  alight, 
with  the  most  beautiful  smile  trembling  on  the  lips. 
The  splendor  of  this  look  seemed  to  him  a  mute  ex 
pression  of  her  happiness — of  love  reciprocated,  am 
bition  realized — and  in  it  he  read  his  own  doom,  He 

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turned  blindly  round  to  pick  up  his  hat;  the  door 
behind  him  was  opened,  and  there,  handsome,  deb 
onair,  fresh  as  a  May  morning,  stood  Lord  Hast 
ings,  hat  in  hand. 

"I  hope  you're  not  vexed,  Miss  Ryan,"  said  this 
young  man,  "but  I'm  very  much  afraid  I'm  just  a 
bit  late." 

After  this  Faraday  thought  it  quite  unnecessary  to 
visit  Barney  Ryan's  "palatial  mansion"  for  some 
time.  Genevieve's  engagement  would  soon  be  an 
nounced,  and  then  he  would  have  to  go  and  offer 
his  congratulations.  As  to  whether  he  would  dance 
at  her  wedding  with  a  light  heart — that  was  another 
matter.  He  assured  himself  that  she  was  making  a 
splendid  and  eminently  suitable  marriage.  With  her 
beauty  and  money  and  true  simple  heart  she  would 
deck  the  fine  position  which  the  Englishman  could 
give  her.  He  wished  her  every  happiness,  but  that 
he  should  stand  by  and  watch  the  progress  of  the 
courtship  seemed  to  him  an  unnecessary  twisting  of 
the  knife  in  the  wound.  Even  the  endurance  of  New 
England  human  nature  has  its  limits,  and  Faraday 
could  stand  no  more.  So  he  refused  an  invitation 
to  a  tea  from  Mrs.  Ryan,  and  one  to  a  dinner  and 
another  to  a  small  musical  from  Miss  Ryan,  and 
alone  in  his  Pine  Street  lodgings,  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life,  read  the  "social  columns"  with  a  throb 
bing  heart. 

One  Saturday  afternoon,  two  weeks  from  the  day 
that  he  had  last  seen  Genevieve,  he  sat  in  his  room 
trying  to  read.  He  had  left  the  office  early,  and 
though  it  was  still  some  hours  before  dark,  a  heavy 
unremitting  rain  had  enveloped  the  afternoon  in  a 

70 


premature  twilight.  The  perpetual  run  of  water 
from  a  break  in  the  gutter  near  his  window  sounded 
drearily  through  the  depressing  history  of  the  woes 
and  disappointments  of  David  Grieve.  The  gloom 
of  the  book  and  the  afternoon  was  settling  upon 
Faraday  with  the  creeping  stealthiness  of  a  chill, 
when  a  knock  sounded  upon  his  door,  and  one  of 
the  servants  without  acquainted  him  with  the  sur 
prising  piece  of  intelligence  that  a  lady  was  waiting 
to  see  him  in  the  sitting-room  below. 

As  he  entered  the  room,  dim  with  the  heavy  som- 
berness  of  the  leaden  atmosphere,  he  saw  his  visitor 
standing  looking  out  of  the  window — a  tall,  broad- 
shouldered,  small-waisted  striking  figure,  with  a 
neat  black  turban  crowning  her  closely  braided  hair. 
At  his  step  she  turned,  and  revealed  the  gravely 
handsome  face  of  Genevieve  Ryan.  He  made  no 
attempt  to  take  her  hand,  but  murmured  a  regu 
lation  sentence  of  greeting;  then,  looking  into  her 
eyes,  saw  for  the  first  time  that  handsome  face 
marked  with  strong  emotion.  Miss  Ryan  was 
shaken  from  her  phlegmatic  calm;  her  hand  trembled 
on  the  back  of  the  chair  before  her;  the  little  knot 
of  violets  in  her  dress  vibrated  to  the  beating  of  her 
heart. 

"This  is  not  a  very  conventional  thing  to  do,"  she 
said,  with  her  usual  ignoring  of  all  preamble,  "but 
I  can't  help  that.  I  had  something  to  talk  to  you 
about,  Mr.  Faraday,  and  as  you  would  not  come  to 
see  me,  I  had  to  come  to  see  you." 

"What  is  it  that  you  wanted  to  see  me  about?" 
asked  Faraday,  standing  motionless,  and  feeling  in 
the  sense  of  oppression  and  embarrassment  that 

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seemed  to  weigh  upon  them  both  the  premonition 
of  an  approaching  crisis. 

She  made  no  answer  for  a  moment,  but  stood 
looking  down,  as  if  in  an  effort  to  choose  her  words 
or  collect  her  thoughts,  the  violets  in  her  dress  rising 
and  falling  with  her  quickened  breathing. 

"It's  rather  hard  to  know  how  to  say — anything," 
she  said  at  length. 

"If  I  can  do  anything  for  you,"  said  the  young 
man,  "you  know  it  would  always  be  a  happiness  to 
me  to  serve  you." 

"Oh,  it's  not  a  message  or  a  favor,"  she  said,  hast 
ily.  "I  only  wanted  to  say  something" — she  paused 
in  great  embarrassment — "but  it's  even  more  queer, 
more  unusual,  than  my  coming  here." 

Faraday  made  no  response,  and  for  a  space  both 
were  silent.  Then  she  said,  speaking  with  a  peculiar 
low  distinctness: 

"The  last  time  I  saw  you  I  seemed  very  disagree 
able.  I  wanted  to  make  sure  of  something.  I 
wanted  to  make  sure  that  you  were  fond  of  me — to 
surprise  it  out  of  you.  Well — I  did  it.  You  are 
fond  of  me.  I  made  you  show  it  to  me."  She  raised 
her  eyes,  brilliant  and  dark,  and  looked  into  his.  "If 
you  were  to  swear  to  me  now  that  I  was  wrong  I 
would  know  you  were  not  telling  the  truth,"  she 
said,  with  proud  defiance.  'You  love  me." 

"  Yes,"  said  Faraday,  slowly,  "  I  do.    What  then  ?  " 

"What  then?"  she  repeated.  "Why  do  you  go 
away — go  away  from  me?" 

"Because,"  he  answered,  "I  am  too  much  of  a 
man  to  live  within  sight  of  the  woman  I  love  and 
can  never  hope  for." 

72 


"Can  never  hope  for?"  she  exclaimed,  aghast. 
"Are  you — are  you  married?" 

The  sudden  horror  on  her  face  was  a  strange 
thing  for  Faraday  to  see. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  am  not  married." 

"Then,  did  she  tell  you  that  you  never  could  hope 
for  her?"  said  Miss  Genevieve  Ryan,  in  a  tremulous 
voice. 

"No.     It  was  not  necessary.     I  knew  myself." 

"You  did  yourself  a  wrong,  and  her  too,"  she 
broke  out,  passionately.  "You  should  have  told  her, 
and  given  her  a  chance  to  say — to  say  what  she  has 
a  right  to  say,  without  making  her  come  to  you, 
with  her  love  in  her  hand,  to  offer  it  to  you  as  if  she 
was  afraid  you  were  going  to  throw  it  back  in  her 
face.  It's  bad  enough  being  a  woman  anyway,  but 
to  have  the  feelings  of  a  woman,  and  then  have  to 
say  a  thing  like  this — it's — it's — ghastly." 

"Genevieve!"  breathed  Faraday. 

"Why  don't  you  understand?"  she  continued, 
desperately.  "You  won't  see  it.  You  make  me 
come  here  and  tell  it  to  you  this  way.  I  may  be  badly 
mannered  and  unconventional,  but  I  have  feelings 
and  pride  like  other  women.  But  what  else  could  I 
do?" 

Her  voice  suddenly  broke  into  soft  appeal,  and 
she  held  out  her  hands  toward  him  with  a  gesture 
as  spontaneous  in  its  pleading  tenderness  as  though 
made  by  a  child.  Faraday  was  human.  He  dashed 
away  the  chair  that  stood  between  them  and  clasped 
the  trembling  hands  in  his. 

"Why  is  it,"  she  asked,  looking  into  his  face  with 
shining  troubled  eyes — "  why  is  it  you  a6led  this  way  ? 

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Was  it  Lord  Hastings?  I  refused  him  two  weeks 
ago.  I  thought  I'd  marry  him  once,  but  that  was 
before  I  knew  you.  Then  I  waited  for  you,  and  you 
didn't  come,  and  I  wrote  to  you,  and  you  wouldn't 
come.  And  so  I  had  to  come  and  tell  you  myself, 
and  it's  been  something  dreadful." 

Faraday  made  no  response,  but  feeling  the  smooth 
hands  curled  warm  inside  his,  he  stood  listening  to 
those  soft  accents  that  issued  with  the  sweetness  that 
love  alone  lends  to  women's  voices  from  lips  he  had 
thought  as  far  beyond  his  reach  as  the  key  of  the 
rainbow. 

"Do  you  think  it  was  awful  for  me  to  do  it?"  she 
queried,  in  whispering  anxiety. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Well,"  she  said,  laughing  a  littte  and  turning  her 
head  half  away,  as  her  former  embarrassment  began 
to  reassert  itself  over  her  subsiding  nervousness, 
"I've  often  wished  I  was  a  man,  but  if  it's  always 
as  awful  as  that  to  propose  to  a  person,  I'm  quite 
content  to  be  a  woman." 


74 


GIDEON'S  KNOCK 

BY 
MARY  HALLECK  FOOTE 


^V 

1 


Written  for  THE  SPINNERS'  BOOK  or  FICTION 
All  Rights  Reserved 


GIDEON'S  KNOCK 

Y  A  curious  coincidence,  whenever 
George  Fleming  was  translated  to  a 
wider  berth,  it  was  my  luck  to  suc 
ceed  him  in  the  job  he  had  just 
quitted.  This  had  happened  more 
than  once,  in  the  chances  and  changes 
that  befall  the  younger  men  in  the  mining  profes 
sion,  before  we  began  to  jolly  each  other  about  it— 
always  at  long  range. 

When  I  heard  he  had  resigned  from  the  Consoli 
dated  Resumption,  to  everybody's  surprise,  at  a  time 
of  great  prosperity  to  the  mine,  I  hailed  my  chance 
and  congratulated  myself  that  I  should  speedily  be 
asked  to  fill  his  place:  and  I  was! 

I  wrote  him  on  the  spot  a  playful  letter,  alluding 
to  my  long,  stern  chase  and  begging  him  to  hold  on 
this  time  till  I  could  shake  him  by  the  hand;  I  had 
come  to  have  a  personal  sentiment  toward  him 
apart  from  the  natural  desire  to  meet  face  to  face 
the  author  of  my  continued  advancement.  But  to 
this  letter  I  received  no  word  of  reply. 

His  silence  haunted  me,  rather — I  thought  about 
him  a  good  deal  while  I  was  closing  up  my  affairs  in 
other  directions  before  taking  over  the  Consolidated 
Resumption.  Meanwhile  the  company's  cashier, 

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Joshua  Dean,  a  man  of  trust  but  small  initiative, 
was  filling  the  interregnum. 

I  found  him  living  alone  in  the  manager's  house 
with  the  Flemings'  Chinese  cook  as  man  of  all  work. 
The  Resumption  has  never  tolerated  a  boarding- 
house  or  a  village  or  compound  within  sight  of  its 
official  windows.  Its  first  manager  was  a  son  of  the 
chief  owner,  who  built  his  house  in  the  style  of  a 
gentleman's  country-seat,  small  but  exclusive  and 
quite  apart  from  the  work.  I  liked  the  somber  se 
clusion  of  the  place,  planted  deep  with  trees  of 
about  twenty  years'  growth,  showing  their  delicate, 
changing  greens  against  the  darker  belt  of  pines. 
But  its  aspect  increased,  if  anything,  that  uneasy 
sensation,  like  a  cold  wind  in  my  back,  which  I 
still  had  in  thinking  of  Fleming. 

I  had  driven  out  to  dine  with  Dean  on  the  evening 
of  my  arrival.  It  was  the  last  week  in  January; 
there  had  been  much  rain  already  for  the  foothills. 
Wet  sprays  from  the  untrimmed  rose  hedges  disputed 
my  passage  through  the  inner  gate.  Discolored  pine- 
needles  lay  in  sodden  drifts  on  the  neglected  grass. 
The  hydrant  leaked  frozen  puddles  down  the  brick- 
paved  walk.  Mounting  the  veranda  steps  I  laid  my 
hand  on  the  knocker,  when  an  old  Chinese  servant 
popped  his  head  out  at  a  side-door  and  violently 
beckoned  me  in  that  way. 

Dean,  as  I  knew,  had  made  his  home  with  the 
Flemings  for  some  time  before  their  departure. 
After  a  few  talks  with  him  and  a  survey  of  the  house 
I  decided  we  might  venture  to  continue  the  arrange 
ment  without  getting  in  each  other's  way.  It  was  a 
house  peculiarly  adapted  to  a  solitude  a  deux.  There 

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Gideons  Knock 


was  no  telephone  nearer  than  the  office.  I  argued 
that  Fleming  was  a  man  who  could  protect  himself 
from  frivolous  intrusions,  and  his  wife  could  have 
had  but  little  in  common  with  her  neighbors  in  the 
village. 

He  had  resigned  on  account  of  her  health,  I  was 
told.  It  must  have  been  a  hasty  flitting  or  an  incon 
clusive  one.  The  odd,  attractive  rooms  were  full  of 
their  belongings  still.  We  two  casual  bachelors  with 
our  circumspect  habits  could  make  no  impression 
on  the  all  but  speaking  silence  of  those  empty  rooms. 
They  filled  me  at  times  with  a  curious  emotion  of 
sadness  and  unrest. 

Joshua  seldom  talked  of  the  Flemings,  though  I 
knew  he  received  letters  from  them.  That  he  was 
deeply  attached  to  their  memory,  hoarded  it  and 
brooded  over  it,  I  could  not  doubt.  I  even  sus 
pected  some  jealous  sentiment  on  his  part  which 
made  it  hard  for  him  to  see  me  using  their 
chairs,  planting  myself  amongst  their  cushions  and 
investigating  their  book-shelves.  I  thought  it  strange 
they  had  left  so  many  things  behind  them  of  a  per 
sonal  nature.  They  seemed  to  have  ceased  to  care 
for  what  most  of  us  rolling  stones  are  wont  to  cling 
to.  Their  departure  had  something  unspeakable  in 
it — akin  to  sudden  death,  or  a  sickness  of  the  heart 
that  made  life  indifferent  to  them. 

"They  must  have  loved  this  room!"  I  said  to  him 
one  evening.  It  was  during  the  black  rains  of  Feb 
ruary — Dean  and  I  with  our  chairs  to  the  fire,  wait 
ing  for  the  Eastern  mail.  The  night  watchman's 
orders  were  to  stop  for  it  if  the  trains  were  anywhere 
near  on  time.  At  this  storm  season  the  Westbound 

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TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


was  frequently  behind  and  the  road  to  town  a  quag 
mire.  We  never  looked  for  Fahey — he  was  the  man 
I  found  there  as  night  watchman — before  eight 
o'clock.  It  had  rained  and  snowed  off  and  on  since 
the  month  began.  In  the  dark,  low  rooms  the  fire 
burned  all  day.  The  dining-room,  which  had  blue- 
green  walls  in  imitation  of  Flemish  tapestry  and 
weathered-oak  furniture,  was  darkened  still  more 
by  the  pines  that  gave  a  cloistered  look  to  the  view 
from  our  back  windows  into  a  small,  square  court, 
high-walled  and  spread  with  pine-needles.  The 
rooms  we  used  were  two  small  ones  united,  done  in 
white  and  yellow  and  with  slim  curtains  which  we 
could  crush  back  upon  the  rods;  but  even  there  one 
could  not  see  to  read  by  daylight.  This  continuous, 
arctic  gloom  added,  no  doubt,  to  the  melancholy 
spell  of  the  house,  which  nevertheless  charmed  me, 
and  held  me  almost  with  a  sense  of  impalpable 
presences  sharing  with  Joshua  and  me  our  intimate, 
wistful  seclusion.  If  I  was  happy,  in  a  luxuriously 
mournful  sort  of  way,  I  knew  that  he  was  not — that 
he  grieved  persistently  over  something  that  cast  a 
greyness  over  his  thoughts  in  keeping  with  the  at 
mosphere.  I  knew  that  he  knew  without  any  names 
whom  I  meant  whenever  I  spoke  of  they. 

:'Yes,  they  loved  it,"  he  said,  answering  my  ex 
clamation.  "They  made  it,  somehow,  as  character 
is  said  to  shape  its  own  set  of  features." 

"Had  they  lived  here  long?" 

"For  a  mine  house,  yes.  It  was,  of  course,  a 
home.  They  had  no  other." 

"A  happy  one?"  I  ventured. 

"  Can  any  one  be  called  happy  who  has  the  gift  of 

80 


strong  feeling,  and  two  children  at  stake,  in  this 
world?"  I  had  never  heard  him  speak  with  such 
bitterness. 

"But  to  have  any  one  to  feel  for — that  is  life,"  I 
said.  "I  wish  I  had  more  of  it  myself." 

"Life,  then,  is  not  happiness." 

I  left  him  the  last  word,  and  sitting  so,  both  silent, 
we  heard  a  screen-door  at  the  kitchen-end  blow  to 
with  a  bang  and  a  clatter  of  tinware  that  sent  the 
blood  to  my  face  in  wrath.  I  said  something — about 
Jim  and  his  fly-doors  (Jim  believed  that  flies  or  their 
ghosts  besieged  that  house  all  winter) — when  the  old 
heathen  himself  came  boiling  into  the  room  like  a 
whole  United  States  mail  service  delayed. 

"Hoo!  Heap  bad  ou'si'!  Heap  snow!"  he 
panted,  wiping  drops  from  the  lock  of  the  mail- 
pouch  with  his  apron. 

My  wrath  increased,  because  once  more  Fahey 
had  got  past  the  front  door  with  the  mail,  whereas 
each  night  I  had  promised  myself  to  waylay  him 
and  change  his  roundabout  method  of  delivery.  "  If  I 
live  till  tomorrow,"  I  said  crossly,  "I'll  see  if  he  can't 
climb  those  steps  and  hand  us  the  bag  himself." 

Jim  stood  listening.  "We  might  be  at  dinner," 
Joshua  suggested. 

"What's  the  matter  with  knocking? — what  is  the 
knocker  for?"  It  struck  me,  as  I  spoke,  that  I  had 
not  heard  the  sound  of  the  knocker  since  the  day 
Jim  stayed  my  own  hand  and  shunted  me  in  at  the 
side;  it  seemed  he  must  have  practised  the  same 
vigilance  with  subsequent  comers,  for  I  could  not 
recall  one  person  who  had  entered  the  house  an 
nounced  by  the  brass  lion's  head  on  the  door. 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"He  no  lock!"  Jim  planted  himself  in  front  of 
me;  his  voice  quavered  nervously.  "All  time  I  un- 
lock!  Fi'  'tlock  whistle  blow — I  go  quick!  Nobody 
wait.  I  all  time  run." 

"Why  should  you  run?  What  is  the  knocker 
for?"  I  repeated.  At  this  I  stepped  past  him,  start 
ling  him  somewhat,  and  hurled  open  the  front  door. 
I  had  heard  our  coy  watchman  going  down  the  path. 

"Tomorrow  night,  Fahey,"  I  shouted,  "you  bring 
the  bag  in  this  way.  Knock,  man!  There's  the 
knocker — see  ?  " 

Jim  looked  at  me  with  eyes  aghast.  He  gathered 
himself  for  speech,  breathing  deeply. 

"Mis'  Oth'  (my  name  is  Othet),  I  tell  you:  Long 
time — long  time,  no  man  knock  flon'  do'.     In  this 
house,  no  good.  No  good  knock.  Sometime  some- 
come — you  no  man  see!"     He    lowered    his    voice 
to    a    rapid    whisper,    spreading    his    yellow    palms 
tremulously.  "You  tell  man  come  knock  flon'  do'- 
I  go  'way.    Too  much  bad  thing!" 

Muttering  to  himself  he  retreated.  "Now  what 
has  he  got  on  his  mind  do.  you  suppose  ?  Could  you 
make  out  what  he  was  driving  at?" 

Dean  smiled,  a  non-committal  smile.  "It  would 
be  rather  awkward  for  us,  wouldn't  it,  if  Jim  should 
leave  ?  We  are  too  far  from  the  coast  for  city  servants 
in  winter.  I  doubt  if  any  of  the  natives  could  be 
persuaded  to  stay  in  this  house  alone." 

"You  think  Jim  would  leave  if  I  made  Fahey 
knock  at  that  door  every  night?" 

Joshua  answered  me  obliquely.  "If  I  could  ever 
quote  anything  straight,  I  would  remind  you  of  a 
saying  in  one  of  George  Eliot's  novels  that  'we've 

82 


all  got  to  take  a  little  trouble  to  keep  sane  and  call 
things  by  the  same  names  as  other  people.'  Per 
haps  Jim  doesn't  take  quite  trouble  enough.  I  have 
difficulty  sometimes  myself  to  find  names  for  things. 
I  should  like  to  hear  you  classify  a  certain  occurrence 
I  have  in  mind,  not  unconnected,  1  think,  with  Jim's 
behavior  tonight.  I've  never  discussed  it,  of  course. 
In  fa6t,  I've  never  spoken  of  it  before."  He  smiled 
queerly.  "It's  very  astonishing  how  they  know 
things." 

"The  menials?" 

He  nodded.  "  Jim  was  in  the  house  at  the  time. 
No  one  knows  that  he  heard  it, — no  one  ever  told 
him.  But  he  is  thinking  of  it  tonight  just  as  I  am. 
He's  never  forgotten  it  for  a  moment,  and  never 
will." 

Joshua  dragged  the  charred  logs  forward  and 
stooped  amid  their  sparks  to  lay  a  fresh  one  with  its 
back  to  the  chimney.  Then  he  rose  and  looked  out; 
as  he  stood  in  the  door,  I  could  hear  the  hissing  of 
fine  snow  turning  to  rain  and  the  drenched  bamboo 
whipping  the  piazza  posts;  over  all,  the  larger  lament 
of  the  pines,  and,  from  the  long  rows  of  lights  in  the 
gulch,  the  diapason  of  the  stamp-heads  thundering 
on  through  the  night. 

"  Identities  of  sensation,'  said  Joshua,  quoting 
again  as  he  shut  the  door,  "are  strong  with  persons 
who  live  in  lonely  places !  Jim  and  I  have  lived  here 
too  long." 

"Well,  I  hope  you  won't  live  here  another  moment 
till  you  have  told  me  that  story,"  I  urged,  and  we 
drew  again  to  the  fire. 

"There  was  a  watchman  here  before  Fahey,"  he 

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The  Spinners  Book  of  Fiction 


began,  "an  old  plainsman,  with  a  Bible  name,  Gid 
eon.  He  looked  like  the  pictures  of  old  Ossawattamie 
Brown,  and  he  had  for  the  Flemings  a  most  unusual 
regard.  It  was  as  strong  as  his  love  for  his  family.  It 
was  because  of  what  Fleming  did  for  his  son,  young 
Gid,  when  they  caught  him  stealing  specimens  with 
a  gang  of  old  offenders.  Gid  was  nineteen,  and  a 
pretty  good  boy,  we  thought.  Such  things  happen 
between  men  of  the  right  sort  every  day,  I  suppose,— 
Fleming  would  say  so.  But  it  was  his  opportunity 
to  do  it  for  a  man  who  could  feel  and  remember,  and 
he  made  a  friend  for  life  right  there.  It  is  too  long 
a  story  to  tell,  but  young  Gid's  all  right — working 
in  the  city,  married  and  happy, — trusted  like  any 
other  man.  It  wasn't  in  the  blood,  you  see. 

"Before  his  boy  got  into  trouble,  Fleming  used 
to  call  the  old  man  'Gideon,'  talked  to  him  any  old 
way;  but  after  his  pride  fell  down  it  was  always  'Mr. 
Gideon,'  and  a  few  words  when  he  brought  the  mail, 
about  the  weather  or  the  conduct  of  the  trains.  The 
old  man  appeared  to  stand  taller  in  those  moments  at 
the  door,  when  he  brought  to  the  house  the  very 
food  of  its  existence.  They  lived  upon  their  letters, 
for  both  the  children  were  away.  The  army  boy  in 
the  Philippines;  it  was  during  the  Mindanao  cam 
paign;  and  Constance  (Joshua,  I  noticed,  took  a 
deep  breath  before  the  name),  the  daughter,  was 
at  school  in  the  East.  Gideon  could  gauge  the 
spirits  of  the  two,  waiting  here  for  what  he  brought 
them.  He  kept  tally  of  the  soldier's  letters,  the  thin 
blue  ones  that  came  strolling  in  by  the  transport 
lines.  But  hers — her  letters  were  his  pride. 

"'It's  there  all  right,'  he  would  say — 'she   never 

84 


Gideons  Knock 


misses  a  Monday  mail,  the  little  one!'  or,  as  the 
winter  months  wore  on — 'you'll  be  counting  the 
weeks  now,  madam.  Six  more  letters  and  then  the 
telegram  from  Ogden,  and  I  hope  it's  my  privilege 
to  bring  it,  madam.'  For  as  Fleming  gave  him  his 
title,  the  old  man  passed  it  back  with  a  glow  of  em 
phasis,  putting  devotion  into  the  'madam'  and  life 
service  into  the  'Mr.  Fleming,  sir.' 

"Then  she  came  home — Constance — she  was  no 
longer  the  little  one.  Taller  than  her  mother,  and 
rather  silent,  but  her  looks  were  a  language,  and 
her  motions  about  the  house — I  suppose  no  words 
could  measure  their  pride  in  her,  or  their  shrinking 
when  they  thought  of  her  in  contact  with  the  world. 
People  laughed  a  little,  looking  at  her,  when  her 
mother  talked  of  the  years  they  were  going  to  have 
together.  And  she  would  rebuke  the  laugh  and  say, 
'  We  do  not  marry  early  in  my  family,  nor  the  Flem 
ings  either.'  When  the  August  heat  came  on,  they 
thought  she  was  too  pale — they  spared  her  for  a 
visit  to  some  friends  who  had  a  houseboat  off  Belve 
dere,  or  some  such  place.  It  was  an  ambush  of  fate. 
She  came  home,  thin,  brown,  from  living  on  the 
water, — happy!  too  happy  for  safety.  She  brought 
her  fate  with  her,  the  last  man  you'd  suppose  could 
ever  cross  her  path.  He  was  from  Hawaii,  an  Eng 
lishman — not  all  English,  some  of  us  thought.  Hand 
some  as  a  snake;  a  face  that  kept  no  marks.  Eyes 
all  black — nothing  of  the  pupil  showing.  They  say 
such  eyes  are  not  to  be  trusted.  I  never  liked  him. 
I'd  better  not  try  to  describe  him. 

"It  seemed  madness  to  me,  but  I  suppose  they 
were  no  more  helpless  than  other  fathers  and  mothers. 

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TheSpinners'Book  of  Fiction 


He  had  pienty  to  say  for  himself,  and  introductions- 
all  sorts  of  credentials,  except  a  pair  of  eyes.    They 
had  to  let  it  go  on;  and  he  took  her  away  from  them 
six  months  after  she  saw  him  first.     That's  happi 
ness,  if  you  call  it  so!" 

Again  I  added,  "It  is  life." 

"There  was  not  much  left  of  it  in  this  house  after 
she  went,"  Joshua  mused.  "It  was  then  they  asked 
me  to  come  up  and  stay  with  them.  A  silence  of 
three  does  not  press  quite  so  close  as  a  silence  of 
two.  And  we  talked  sometimes.  The  mine  had 
taken  a  great  jump;  it  was  almost  a  mockery  the 
way  things  boomed.  The  letters,  I  noticed,  were 
not  what  the  schoolgirl  letters  had  been  to  her 
mother.  They  came  all  right,  they  were  punctual, 
but  something  I  felt  sure  was  wrong.  Mrs.  Fleming 
would  not  have  missed  a  mail  for  anything  in  the 
world — every  hour's  delay  wore  upon  her.  She 
would  play  her  game  of  solitaire,  long  after  bed 
time,  at  that  desk  by  the  drop-light.  It  seemed  she 
could  not  read;  nothing  held  her.  She  was  irritable 
with  Fleming,  and  then  she  would  pet  him  piteously 
to  make  up.  He  was  always  gentle.  He  would  watch 
her  over  his  book  as  she  walked  up  and  down  in  the 
back  room  in  the  light  between  the  dining-room 
curtains.  If  he  saw  I  noticed,  he'd  look  away  and 
begin  to  talk. 

"I  have  gone  a  little  ahead  of  my  story,  for  this 
was  after  the  dark  weather  came  on  and  the  mails 
were  behind;  we  knew  there  was  some  new  strain 
on  her  spirits.  You  could  see  her  face  grow  small 
and  her  flesh  waste  away. 

"One  night  we  sat  here,  Fleming  and  I,  and  she 

86 


was  pacing  in  her  soft,  weary  way  in  the  back  of  the 
room.  There  came  a  knock.  It  was  Gideon's,  yet 
none  of  us  had  heard  the  gate  click  nor  any  step 
outside.  She  stood  back,  for  she  never  showed  any 
impatience — she  tried  to  pretend  that  she  expected 
nothing.  Fleming  opened  the  door;  he  stood  there 
an  instant  looking  out. 

"'Didn't  you  hear  a  knock?'  he,  asked  me.  Be 
fore  I  could  answer  he  went  outside,  closing  the  door, 
and  we  heard  him  go  down  the  steps  slowly. 

"When  he  came  in  he  merely  said,  *A  jar  of 
wind.' 

"A  jar  of  wind!'  Mrs.  Fleming  mocked  him. 
The  knock  came  again  as  she  spoke.  Once,  twice, 
then  the  light  tap:  I  have  described  Gideon's  knock. 
We  did  not  pretend  again  it  was  the  wind. 

'  You  go  this  time ; '  Fleming  tried  to  laugh.    '  See 
if  there  is  anything  doing.' 

"There  was  nothing  doing  whatever,  and  nothing 
to  be  seen.  I  turned  on  the  ele6lrics  outside,  and 
Fleming,  seeing  the  light,  came  out  to  join  me.  I 
asked  him  if  those  were  his  tracks — a  man's  foot 
steps  could  be  seen  printed  in  the  fresh,  light  snowr 
as  far  as  the  lowest  step  and  back.  All  beyond, 
where  the  light  streamed  down  the  path  to  the  gate, 
was  sky-fresh  snow  softly  laid  without  wind.  *  Those 
are  my  tracks,'  he  said.  'There  were  no  others  be 
fore — sure,'  he  repeated,  'and  there  is  no  one  down 
at  the  gate.  You  need  not  go  down  there.  Say 
nothing  to  her,'  he  continued  as  we  re-opened  the 
door. 

"She  was  expecting  us.  She  was  very  pale  but 
half  smiling,  braving  it  out.  She  fixed  her  eyes  on 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


Fleming  and  then  on  me.  'Did  you  not  both  hear 
that  knock?'  As  she  spoke  it  came  again.  I  stood 
nearest  the  door;  I  hurled  it  open.  Absolutely  noth 
ing.  The  lights,  burning  in  a  silly  way,  made  shad 
ows  on  the  steps.  Not  a  mark,  not  even  a  leaf -track 
on  the  path  we  could  see  below. 

"I  went  over  to  the  telephone  and  called  up  the 
post-office.  What  happened  at  the  house  in  my 
absence  I  do  not  know.  I  found  the  drawing-room 
empty;  Fleming  joined  me  coming  from  his  wife's 
room. 

" '  She  is  fearfully  upset  by  that  knocking,'  he  said. 
'  Can't  we  think  up  some  explanation  ? ' 

"  I  feared  he  would  have  less  courage  for  inventing 
explanations  after  what  I  had  to  tell  him. 

"I  had  followed  the  track  of  a  horse  and  cart  to 
the  stable  and  found  Gideon's  old  mare  at  her  hitch- 
ing-post;  the  cart  was  empty,  the  muddy  lap-robe 
dragging  over  the  wheel.  At  the  post-office  they 
told  me  Gideon  had  started  for  the  mine  an  hour 
and  a  half  ago.  'Hasn't  he  got  out  there  with  that 
telegram  yet?'  they  added.  From  the  telegraph 
office,  where  they  knew  Gideon's  hours,  they  had 
sent  a  message  across  to  the  post-office  to  be  carried 
out  by  him  with  the  mail.  The  voice  on  the  tele 
phone  remarked,  '  I  guess  they  ought  to  get  that  wire 
pretty  soon.  It  was  marked  Important.9 

"Fleming  was  cold  and  shaking  as  he  listened. 
'Drive  back  along  the  road  through  the  woods, 
Joshua' — he  seldom  called  me  by  that  name.  'I 
think  something  has  happened  to  the  old  man.  His 
knock  is  on  duty  tonight,  but  where  is  he?' 

"It  came  again,  and  following  it  a  low  cry  from 

88 


Gideon's  Knock 


the  passage  behind  closed  doors.     'She  heard  it  too/ 
said  Fleming.    And  he  went  to  his  wife. 

"  I  called  up  the  landing-man  to  help  me — Tommy 
Briscoe;  I  knew  he  wouldn't  spread  any  talk  about. 
The  search  was  not  long.  A  lantern  burning  by  it 
self  in  the  woods  showed  us  where  he  had  stopped 
the  cart  and  half  turned  and  tramped  around  in  the 
snow.  He'd  dropped  the  bag  out,  probably,  missed 
it  and  looked  for  it  on  foot,  setting  his  lantern  down. 
He'd  gone  back  quite  a  bit  along  the  road,  and,  coming 
back  with  it,  the  light  in  his  eyes,  he  had  made  a 
misstep,  and  the  shaft — the  old  Granite  Hill  shaft, 
you  know — it's  close  to  the  road.  We  found  him  in 
the  sump  at  the  bottom.  There  had  been  too  much 
rain,  but  it  is  a  deep  shaft  anyway.  He  kept  his 
hold  on  the  bag,  and  he  kept  his  senses  long  enough 
to  hook  it  onto  a  poor  little  stray  pine-root  above  the 
water,  where  he  died.  It  was  a  cruel  death,  but  his 
face  was  good  to  look  at." 

"And  the  telegram?"  I  asked. 

"It  was  safe.  He'd  saved  everything,  except  him 
self.  They  were  driven  over  to  Colfax  that  night, 
with  not  a  moment  to  spare " 

"But  you  haven't  told  me  what  it  was." 

"The  message  ?  Yes,  it  was  from  her,  Constance- 
sent  from  an  address  in  the  city.     It  said — I  sup 
pose  I  may  repeat  it.    It  is  part  of  the  night's  work. 

"Come  to  me,  mother,'  it  said.  *I  am  here.  I 
need  you.'" 

"And  they  were  in  time?" 

"To  bid  her  good-by,"  said  Joshua.  "There  was 
no  hope  for  her  but  in  death.  Of  course,  they  never 
explained.  She  simply  fled  from — we  don't  know 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


what.  As  long  as  she  could  she  bore  it  without  com 
plaint,  and  then  she  came  home.  She  had  them 
both  with  her  and  she  knew  them. 

"I  believe  they  were  willing  to  give  her  up.  It  was  the 
only  solution  left.  They  were  very  fixed  in  their  ideas 
about  divorce,  and  what  comes  after.  They  believed 
in  staking  all  or  nothing  and  abiding  the  result.  The 
logic  of  her  choice  was  death.  They  saw  her  free, 
without  a  stain,  without  an  obligation  in  this  life,  even 
to  her  child,  for  it  lay  dead  beside  her.  They  did  grieve 
for  that.  They  wanted  it  to  live.  It  would  have 
been  something — yet,  I  believe,  even  that  was  best. 

"They  lived  on  here  for  a  while,  if  you  call  it  liv 
ing;  but  the  silence  in  these  rooms  was  more  than 
she  could  endure.  And  I  need  not  tell  you  that  the 
watchman,  who  was  put  on  after  Gideon,  had  orders 
to  leave  that  knocker  alone." 

"And  you  think,"  I  asked,  "that  while  Gideon 
lay  dead  at  the  bottom  of  the  shaft,  his  knock  was 
4  marching  on'  ? "  I  regretted  instantly  the  turn  of 
my  last  sentence.  Joshua  stiffened  as  he  replied: 

"No;  I  cannot  assert  that  he  was  dead,  but  I  am 
convinced  that  what  was  left  of  him,  of  his  mortal — 
or  immortal — consciousness,  was  not  concerned  with 
himself.  What  may  happen  to  us  at  that  last  bound 
ary  post  is  one  of  the  mysteries  no  man  can  solve  till 
he  gets  there." 

"Joshua,"  I  said,  "the  drift  of  your  conclusion 
is  a  tribute  to  Gideon's  faithfulness — well  deserved 
I  have  no  doubt.  But  if  you'll  allow  me  to  say  so,  it 
is  not  a  tribute  to  the  healthy  state  of  your  mind.  I 
regret  to  say  it,  but  I  fear  that  I  agree  with  you:  I 
think  you  have  lived  in  this  house  too  long." 

90 


Gideons  Knock 


66  If  I  have  lived  here  too  long  for  any  other  reason," 
he  answered  gently,  "enough  has  been  said.  It  is 
better  we  should  understand  each  other.  But,  as  to 
my  mind — I  prefer  to  keep  it  unhealthy,  if  by  that 
you  mean  the  tendency  to  project  it  a  little  farther 
than  reason,  founded  on  such  laws  of  the  universe 
as  we  know,  can  help  us.  Healthy  minds  are  such 
as  accept  things — endeavor  to  forget  what  gives  im 
measurable  pain.  I  prefer  the  pain." 


91 


A  YELLOW  MAN  AND 
A  WHITE 


BY 


ELEANOR  GATES 


Reprinted  from  Scribntr's  Magazine  of  June,  1905 
by  permission 


A  YELLOW  MAN  AND  A  WHITE 

ONG  WU  s&i  on  the  porch  of  his  little 
square-fronted  house,  chanting  into 
the  twilight.  Across  his  padded 
blouse  of  purple  silk  lay  his  sam-yen 
banjo.  And  as,  from  time  to  time, 
his  hymn  to  the  Three  Pure  Ones 
was  prolonged  in  high,  fine  quavers,  like  the  uneven, 
squeaky  notes  of  a  woman's  voice,  he  ran  his  left 
hand  up  the  slender  neck  of  the  instrument,  rested 
a  long  nail  of  his  right  on  its  taut,  snake's-skin  head, 
and  lightly  touched  the  strings;  then,  in  quick,  thin 
tones,  they  followed  the  song  to  Sang-Ching. 

The  warm  shadows  of  a  California  summer  night 
were  settling  down  over  the  wooded  hills  and  rocky 
gulches  about  Fong  Wu's,  and  there  was  little  but  his 
music  to  break  the  silence.  Long  since,  the  chickens 
had  sleepily  sought  perches  in  the  hen  yard,  with  its 
high  wall  of  rooty  stumps  and  shakes,  and  on  the 
branches  of  the  Digger  pine  that  towered  beside  it. 
Up  the  dry  creek  bed,  a  mile  away,  twinkled  the 
lights  of  Whiskeytown;  but  no  sounds  from  the 
homes  of  the  white  people  came  down  to  the  lonely 
Chinese.  If  his  clear  treble  was  interrupted,  it  was 
by  the  cracking  of  a  dry  branch  as  a  cottontail  sped 
past  on  its  way  to  a  stagnant  pool,  or  it  was  by  a 

95 


dark-emboldened  coyote,  howling,  dog-like,  at  the 
moon  which,  white  as  the  snow  that  eternally  coifs 
the  Sierras,  was  just  rising  above  their  distant,  cobalt 
line. 

One  year  before,  Fong  Wu,  heavily  laden  with  his 
effects,  had  slipped  out  of  the  stage  from  Redding 
and  found  his  way  to  a  forsaken,  ramshackle  building 
below  Whiskeytown.  His  coming  had  proved  of 
small  interest.  When  the  news  finally  got  about  that 
"a  monkey"  was  living  in  "Sam  Kennedy's  old 
place,"  it  was  thought,  for  a  while,  that  laundering, 
thereafter,  would  be  cheaply  done.  This  hope,  how 
ever,  was  soon  dispelled.  For,  shortly  after  his  ar 
rival,  as  Fong  Wu  asked  at  the  grocery  store  for  mail, 
he  met  Radigan's  inquiry  of  "  You  do  my  washee, 
John  ? "  with  a  grave  shake  of  the  head.  Similar 
questions  from  others  were  met,  later,  in  a  similar 
way.  Soon  it  became  generally  known  that  the 
"monkey  at  Sam  Kennedy's"  did  not  do  washing; 
so  he  wras  troubled  no  further. 

Yet  if  Fong  Wu  did  not  work  for  the  people  of 
Whiskeytown,  he  was  not,  therefore,  idle.  Many  a 
sunrise  found  him  wandering  through  the  chaparral 
thickets  back  of  his  house,  digging  here  and  there 
in  the  red  soil  for  roots  and  herbs.  These  he  took 
home,  washed,  tasted,  and,  perhaps,  dried.  His 
mornings  were  mainly  spent  in  cooking  for  his  abun 
dantly  supplied  table,  in  tending  his  fowls  and  house, 
and  in  making  spotless  and  ironing  smooth  various 
undergarments — generous  of  sleeve  and  leg. 

But  of  an  afternoon,  all  petty  duties  were  laid 
aside,  and  he  sorted  carefully  into  place  upon  his 
shelves  numerous  little  bunches  and  boxes  of  dried 

96 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


herbs  and  numerous  tiny  phials  of  pungent  liquid 
that  had  come  to  him  by  post;  he  filled  wide  sheets 
of  foolscap  with  vertical  lines  of  queer  characters 
and  consigned  them  to  big,  plainly  addressed,  well- 
stamped  envelopes ;  he  scanned  closely  the  last  news 
papers  from  San  Francisco,  and  read  from  volumes 
in  divers  tongues,  and  he  pored  over  the  treasured 
Taoist  book,  "The  Road  to  Virtue." 

Sunday  was  his  one  break  in  the  week's  routine. 
Then,  the  coolies  who  panned  or  cradled  for  gold  in 
the  tailings  of  near-by  abandoned  mines,  gathered 
at  Fong  Wu's.  On  such  occasions,  there  was  endless, 
lively  chatter,  a  steady  exchange  of  barbering — one 
man  scraping  another  clean,  to  be,  in  turn,  made 
hairless  in  a  broad  band  about  the  poll  and  on  cheek 
and  chin — and  much  consuming  of  tasty  chicken, 
dried  fish,  pork,  rice,  and  melon  seeds.  To  supple 
ment  all  this,  Fong  Wu  recounted  the  news:  the  ar 
rival  of  a  consul  in  San  Francisco,  the  raid  on  a  slave- 
or  gambling-den,  the  progress  of  a  tong  war  under 
the  very  noses  of  the  baffled  police,  and  the  growth 
of  Coast  feeling  against  the  continued,  quiet  immi 
gration  of  Chinese.  But  of  the  social  or  political 
affairs  of  the  Flowery  Kingdom — of  his  own  land 
beyond  the  sea — Fong  Wu  was  consistently  silent. 

Added  to  his  Sunday  responsibilities  as  host  and 
purveyor  of  news,  Fong  Wu  had  others.  An  ailing 
countryman,  whether  seized  with  malaria  or  suffer 
ing  from  an  injury,  found  ready  and  efficient  atten 
tion.  The  bark  of  dogwood,  properly  cooked,  gave  a 
liquid  that  killed  the  ague ;  and  oil  from  a  diminutive 
bottle,  or  a  red  powder  whetted  upon  the  skin  with 
a  silver  piece,  brought  out  the  soreness  of  a  bruise. 

97 


ThSpinnerBook  qf  Fiction 


Thus,  keeping  his  house,  herb-hunting,  writing, 
studying,  entertaining,  do  (Storing,  Fong  Wu  lived  on 
at  Whiskey  town. 

Each  evening,  daintily  manipulating  ivory  chop 
sticks,  he  ate  his  supper  of  rice  out  of  a  dragon- 
bordered  bowl.  Then,  when  he  had  poured  tea  from 
a  pot  all  gold-encrusted — a  cluster  of  blossoms  nod 
ding  in  a  vase  at  his  shoulder  the  while — he  went 
out  upon  the  porch  of  the  square-fronted  house. 

And  there,  as  now,  a  scarlet-buttoned  cap  on  his 
head,  his  black  eyes  soft  with  dreaming,  his  richly 
wrought  sandals  tapping  the  floor  in  time,  his  long 
queue — a  smooth,  shining  serpent — in  thick  coils 
about  his  tawny  neck,  Fong  Wu  thrummed  gently 
upon  the  three-stringed  banjo,  and,  in  peace,  chanted 
into  the  twilight. 

#####:*:*:* 

Flying  hoofs  scattered  the  gravel  on  the  strip  of 
road  before  Fong  Wu's.  He  looked  through  the 
gloom  and  saw  a  horse  flash  past,  carrying  a  skirted 
rider  toward  Whiskey  town.  His  song  died  out.  He 
let  his  banjo  slip  down  until  its  round  head  rested 
between  his  feet.  Then  he  turned  his  face  up  the 
gulch. 

Despite  the  dusk,  he  knew  the  traveler:  Mrs. 
Anthony  Barrett,  who,  with  her  husband,  had  re 
cently  come  to  live  in  a  house  near  Stillwater.  Every 
evening,  when  the  heat  was  over,  she  went  by,  bound 
for  the  day's  mail  at  the  post-office.  Every  evening, 
in  the  cool,  Fong  Wu  saw  her  go,  and  sometimes  she 
gave  him  a  friendly  nod. 

Her  mount  was  a  spirited,  mouse-dun  mustang, 
with  crop-ears,  a  roached  mane,  and  the  back  mark- 

98 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


ings  of  a  mule.  She  always  rode  at  a  run,  sitting  with 
easy  ere6lness.  A  wide  army  hat  rested  snugly  on 
her  fair  hair,  and  shaded  a  white  forehead  and  level- 
looking  eyes.  But  notwithstanding  the  sheltering 
brim,  on  her  girlish  face  were  set  the  glowing,  scarlet 
seals  of  wind  and  sun. 

As  he  peered  townward  after  her,  Fong  Wu  heard 
the  hurrying  hoof-beats  grow  gradually  fainter  and 
fainter — and  cease.  Presently  the  moon  topped  the 
pines  on  the  foot-hills  behind  him,  bathing  the  gulch 
in  light.  The  road  down  which  she  would  come 
sprang  into  view.  He  watched  its  farthest  open 
point.  In  a  few  moments  the  hoof -beats  began  again. 
Soon  the  glint  of  a  light  waist  showed  through  the 
trees.  Next,  horse  and  rider  rounded  a  curve  at  hand. 
Fong  Wu  leaned  far  forward. 

And  then,  just  as  the  mustang  gained  the  strip  of 
road  before  the  square-fronted  house,  it  gave  a  sud 
den,  unlooked-for,  outward  leap,  reared  with  a  wild 
snort,  and,  whirling,  dashed  past  the  porch — rider 
less. 

With  an  exclamation,  Fong  Wu  flung  his  banjo 
aside  and  ran  to  the  road.  There  under  a  manzanita 
bush,  huddled  and  still,  lay  a  figure.  He  caught  it 
up,  bore  it  to  the  porch,  and  put  it  gently  down. 

A  brief  examination,  made  with  the  deftness  prac 
tise  gives,  showed  him  that  no  bones  were  broken. 
Squatting  beside  the  unconscious  woman,  he  next 
played  slowly  with  his  long-nailed  fingers  upon  her 
pulse.  Its  beat  reassured  him.  He  lighted  a  lamp 
and  held  it  above  her.  The  scarlet  of  her  cheeks  was 
returning. 

The  sight  of  her,  who  was  so  strong  and  active, 

99 


TheSpinners'Book  of  Fiction 


stretched  weak  and  fainting,  compelled  Fong  Wu 
into  spoken  comment.  "The  petal  of  a  plum  blos 
som,"  he  said  compassionately,  in  his  own  tongue. 

She  stirred  a  little.  He  moved  back.  As,  reviving, 
she  opened  her  eyes,  they  fell  upon  him.  But  he  wa,s 
half  turned  away,  his  face  as  blank  and  lifeless  as  a 
mask. 

She  gave  a  startled  cry  and  sat  up.  "  Me  hurtee  ?" 
she  asked  him,  adopting  pidgin-English.  "Me 
fallee  off?" 

Fong  Wu  rose.  'You  were  thrown,"  he  answered 
gravely. 

She  colored  in  confusion.  "Pardon  me,"  she  said, 
"  for  speaking  to  you  as  if  you  were  a  coolie."  Then, 
as  she  got  feebly  to  her  feet—  "  I  believe  my  right  arm 
is  broken." 

"I  have  some  knowledge  of  healing,"  he  declared; 
"let  me  look  at  it."  Before  she  could  answer,  he  had 
ripped  the  sleeve  away.  "It  is  only  a  sprain,"  he 
said.  "Wait."  He  went  inside  for  an  amber  liquid 
and  bandages.  When  he  had  laved  the  injured 
muscles,  he  bound  them  round. 

"How  did  it  happen?"  she  asked,  as  he  worked. 
He  was  so  courteous  and  professional  that  her  alarm 
was  gone. 

'Your  horse  was  frightened  by  a  rattler  in  the  road. 
I  heard  it  whir." 

She  shuddered.  "I  ought  to  be  thankful  that  I 
didn't  come  my  cropper  on  it,"  she  said,  laughing 
nervously. 

He  went  inside  again,  this  time  to  prepare  a  cupful 
of  herbs.  When  he  offered  her  the  draught,  she 
screwed  up  her  face  over  its  nauseating  fumes. 

100 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


"If  that  acT;s  as  strongly  as  it  tastes,"  she  said, 
after  she  had  drunk  it,  "I'll  be  well  soon." 

"It  is  to  keep  away  inflammation." 

"Oh!    Can  I  go  now?" 

'  Yes.  But  tomorrow  return,  and  I  will  look  at  the 
arm."  He  took  the  lamp  away  and  replaced  his  red- 
buttoned  cap  with  a  black  felt  hat.  Then  he  silently 
preceded  her  down  the  steps  to  the  road.  Only  when 
the  light  of  her  home  shone  plainly  ahead  of  them, 
did  he  leave  her. 

They  had  not  spoken  on  the  way.  But  as  he  bowed 
a  good  night,  she  addressed  him.  "I  thank  you," 
she  said.  "And  may  I  ask  your  name?" 

"Kwa"— he  began,  and  stopped.  Emotion  for  an 
instant  softened  his  impassive  countenance.  He 
turned  away.  "Fong  Wu,"  he  added,  and  was  gone. 

The  following  afternoon  the  crunch  of  cart  wheels 
before  the  square-fronted  house  announced  her  com 
ing.  Fong  Wu  closed  "The  Book  of  Virtue,"  and 
stepped  out  upon  the  porch. 

A  white  man  was  seated  beside  her  in  the  vehicle. 
As  she  sprang  from  it,  light-footed  and  smiling,  and 
mounted  the  steps,  she  indicated  him  politely  to  the 

/^<l    •  v 

Chinese. 

'This  is  my  husband,"  she  said.  "I  have  told 
him  how  kind  you  were  to  me  last  night." 

Fong  Wu  nodded. 

Barrett  hastened  to  voice  his  gratitude.  "I  cer 
tainly  am  very  much  obliged  to  you,"  he  said.  "My 
wife  might  have  been  bitten  by  the  rattler,  or  she 
might  have  lain  all  night  in  pain  if  you  hadn't  found 
her.  And  I  want  to  say  that  your  treatment  was 
splendid.  Why,  her  arm  hasn't  swollen  or  hurt  her. 

101 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


I'll  be  hanged  if  I  can  see — you're  such  a  good  doc 
tor — why  you  stay  in  this " 

Fong  Wu  interrupted  him.  "I  will  wet  the  band 
age  with  medicine,"  he  said,  and  entered  the  house. 

They  watched  him  with  some  curiosity  as  he 
treated  the  sprain  and  studied  the  pulse.  When  he 
brought  out  her  second  cup  of  steaming  herbs,  Mrs. 
Barrett  looked  up  at  him  brightly. 

"  You  know  we're  up  here  for  Mr.  Barrett's  health," 
she  said.  "A  year  or  so  after  we  were  married,  he 
was  hurt  in  a  railway  collision.  Since  then,  though 
his  wounds  healed  nicely,  he  has  never  been  quite 
well.  Dr.  Lord,  our  family  physician,  prescribed 
plenty  of  rough  work,  and  a  quiet  place,  far  from  the 
excitement  of  a  town  or  city.  Now,  all  this  morning, 
when  I  realized  how  wonderful  it  was  that  my  arm 
wasn't  aching,  I've  been  urging  my  husband — what 
do  you  suppose  ? — to  come  and  be  examined  by  you ! " 

Fong  Wu,  for  the  first  time,  looked  fully  at  the 
white  man,  marking  the  sallow,  clayey  face,  with  its 
dry,  lined  skin,  its  lusterless  eyes  and  drooping  lids. 

Barrett  scowled  at  his  wife.  "Nonsense,  dear," 
he  said  crossly;  "you  know  very  well  that  Lord  would 
never  forgive  me." 

"But  Fong  Wu  might  help  you,"  she  declared. 

Fong  Wu's  black  eyes  were  still  fixed  searchingly 
upon  the  white  man.  Before  their  scrutiny,  soul- 
deep,  the  other's  faltered  and  fell. 

"You  might  help  him,  mightn't  you,  Fong  Wu?" 
Mrs.  Barrett  repeated. 

An  expression,  curious,  keen,  and  full  of  meaning, 

was  the  answer.  Then,  "I  might  if  he "  Fong 

Wu  said,  and  paused. 

102 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


Past  Mrs.  Barrett,  whose  back  was  toward  her 
husband,  the  latter  had  shot  a  warning  glance. 
"Come,  come,  Edith,"  he  cried  irritably;  "let's  get 
home." 

Mrs.  Barrett  emptied  her  cup  bravely.  "When 
shall  we  call  again?"  she  asked. 

"You  need  not  come  again,"  Fong  Wu  replied. 
"Each  day  you  have  only  to  dampen  the  bandages 
from  these."  He  handed  her  a  green-flowered  box 
containing  twelve  tiny  compartments;  in  each  was 
a  phial. 

"And  I  sha'n't  have  to  take  any  more  of  this— 
this  awful  stuff?"  she  demanded  gaily,  giving  back 
the  cup. 

"No." 

"Ah!  And  now,  I  want  to  thank  you  again,  with 
all  my  heart.  Here,"  —she  reached  into  the  pocket 
of  her  walking-skirt, — "here  is  something  for  your 
trouble."  Two  double-eagles  lay  on  her  open  palm. 

Fong  Wu  frowned  at  them.  "I  take  no  money," 
he  said,  a  trifle  gruffly.  And  as  she  got  into  the  cart, 
he  closed  the  door  of  his  home  behind  him. 

It  was  a  week  before  Mrs.  Barrett  again  took  up 
her  rides  for  the  mail.  When  she  did,  Fong  Wu  did 
not  fail  to  be  on  his  porch  as  she  passed.  For  each 
evening,  as  she  cantered  up  the  road,  spurring  the 
mustang  to  its  best  paces,  she  reined  to  speak  to  him. 
And  he  met  her  greetings  with  unaccustomed  good 
humor. 

Then  she  went  by  one  morning  before  sunrise, 
riding  like  the  wind.  A  little  later  she  repassed, 
whipping  her  horse  at  every  gallop.  Fong  Wu, 
called  to  his  door  by  the  clatter,  saw  that  her  face 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


was  white  and  drawn.  At  noon,  going  up  to  the 
post-office,  he  heard  a  bit  of  gossip  that  seemed  to 
bear  upon  her  unwonted  trip.  Radigan  was  re 
hearsing  it  excitedly  to  his  wife,  and  the  Chinese 
busied  himself  with  his  mail  and  listened — ap 
parently  unconcerned. 

"I  c'n  tell  you  she  ain't  afraid  of  anythin',  that 
Mrs.  Barrett,"  the  post-master  was  saying;  "neither 
th'  cayuse  she  rides  or  a  critter  on  two  legs.  An' 
that  fancy  little  drug-clerk  from  'Frisco  got  it  straight 
from  th'  shoulder." 

"S-s-sh!"  admonished  his  wife,  from  the  back  of 
the  office.  "Isn't  there  some  one  outside?" 

"Naw,  just  th'  chink  from  Kennedy's.  Well,  as 
I  remarked,  she  did  jus'  light  into  that  dude.  'It 
was  criminal!'  she  says,  an'  her  eyes  snapped  like  a 
whip;  'it  was  criminal!  an'  if  I  find  out  for  sure  that 
you  are  guilty,  I'll  put  you  where  you'll  never  do  it 
again.'  Th'  young  gent  smirked  at  her  an'  squirmed 
like  a  worm.  'You're  wrong,  Mrs.  Barrett,'  he  says, 
lookin'  like  th'  meek  puppy  he  is,  '  an'  you'll  have 
t'  look  some  place  else  for  th'  person  that  done  it.' 
But  she  wouldn't  talk  no  longer — jus'  walked  out, 
as  mad  as  a  hornet." 

"Well,  well,"  mused  Mrs.  Radigan.  "I  wonder 
what  'twas  all  about.  '  Criminal,'  she  said,  eh  ? 
That's  funny!"  She  walked  to  the  front  of  the  office 
and  peeked  through  the  wicket.  But  no  one  was 
loitering  near  except  Fong  Wu,  and  his  face  was  the 
pidlure  of  dull  indifference. 

That  night,  long  after  the  hour  for  Mrs.  Barrett's 
regular  trip,  and  long  past  the  time  for  his  supper- 
song,  Fong  Wu  heard  slow,  shuffling  steps  approach 

104 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


the  house.  A  moment  afterward,  the  knob  of  his 
door  was  rattled.  He  put  out  his  light  and  slipped  a 
knife  into  his  loose  sleeve. 

After  some  fumbling  and  moving  about  on  the 
porch,  a  man  called  out  to  him.  He  recognized  the 
voice. 

"Fong  Wu!  Fong  Wu!"  it  begged.  "Let  me  in. 
I  want  to  see  you;  I  want  to  ask  you  for  help — for 
something  I  need.  Let  me  in;  let  me  in." 

Fong  Wu,  without  answering,  relit  his  lamp,  and, 
with  the  air  of  one  who  is  at  the  same  time  both  re 
lieved  and  a  witness  of  the  expected,  flung  the  door 
wide. 

Then  into  the  room,  writhing  as  if  in  fearful  agony, 
his  hands  palsied,  his  face  a-drip  and,  except  for 
dark  blotches  about  the  mouth,  green-hued,  his  eyes 
wild  and  sunken,  fell,  rather  than  tottered,  Anthony 
Barrett. 

"Fong  Wu,"  he  pleaded,  from  the  floor  at  the 
other's  feet,  "you  helped  my  wife  when  she  was 
sick,  now  help  me.  I'm  dying!  I'm  dying!  Give  it 
to  me,  for  God's  sake!  give  it  to  me."  He  caught  at 
the  skirt  of  Fong  Wu's  blouse. 

The  Chinese  retreated  a  little,  scowling.  "What 
do  you  want?"  he  asked. 

A  paroxysm  of  pain  seized  Barrett.  He  half  rose 
and  stumbled  forward.  "You  know,"  he  panted, 
"you  know.  And  if  I  don't  have  some,  I'll  die.  I 
can't  get  it  anywhere  else.  She's  found  me  out,  and 
scared  the  drug-clerk.  Oh,  just  a  little,  old  man, 
just  a  little!"  He  sank  to  the  floor  again. 

"I  can  give  you  nothing,"  said  Fong  Wu  bluntly. 
"I  do  not  keep — what  you  want." 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


With  a  curse,  Barrett  was  up  again.  "Oh,  you 
don't,"  he  screamed,  leering  frenziedly.  "You  yel 
low  devil!  You  almond-eyed  pigtail!  But  I  know 
you  do!  And  I  must  have  it.  Quick!  quick!"  He 
hung,  clutching,  on  the  edge  of  Fong  Wu's  wide 
ironing-table,  an  ashen  wreck. 

Fong  Wu  shook  his  head. 

With  a  cry,  Barrett  came  at  him  and  seized  his 
lean  throat.  "You  damned  highbinder!"  he  gasped. 
"You  saddle-nosed  monkey!  You'll  get  me  what  I 
want  or  I'll  give  you  away.  Don't  I  know  why  you're 
up  here  in  these  woods,  with  your  pretty  clothes  and 
your  English  talk?  K-ha!  You  bet  I  do!  You're 
hiding,  and  you're  wanted," — he  dropped  his  voice 
to  a  whisper, — "the  tongs  would  pay  head-money 
for  you.  If  you  don't  give  it  to  me,  I'll  put  every 
fiend  in  'Frisco  on  your  trail." 

Fong  Wu  had  caught  Barrett's  wrists.  Now  he 
cast  him  to  one  side.  "Tongs!"  he  said  with  a 
shrug,  as  if  they  were  beneath  his  notice.  And 
"Fiends!"  he  repeated  contemptuously,  a  taunt  in 
his  voice. 

The  white  man  had  fallen  prone  and  was  grovelling 
weakly.  "Oh,  I  won't  tell  on  you,"  he  wailed  im 
ploringly.  "I  won't,  I  won't,  Fong  Wu;  I  swear  it 
on  my  honor." 

Fong  Wu  grunted  and  reached  to  a  handy  shelf. 
"I  will  make  a  bargain  with  you,"  he  said  craftily; 
"first,  you  are  to  drink  what  I  wish." 

"Anything!  anything!"  Barrett  cried. 

From  a  box  of  dry  herbs,  long  untouched,  the 
Chinese  drew  out  a  handful.  There  was  no  time  for 
brewing.  Outraged  nature  demanded  instant  relief. 

106 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


He  dropped  them  into  a  bowl,  covered  them  with 
water,  and  stirred  swiftly.  When  the  stems  and 
leaves  were  broken  up  and  well  mixed,  he  strained 
a  brown  liquid  from  them  and  put  it  to  the  other's  lips. 

"Drink,"  he  commanded,  steadying  the  shaking 
head. 

Barrett  drank,  unquestioningly. 

Instantly  the  potion  worked.  Calmed  as  if  by  a 
miracle,  made  drowsy  to  a  point  where  speech  was 
impossible,  the  white  man,  tortured  but  a  moment 
before,  tipped  sleepily  into  Fong  Wu's  arms.  The 
Chinese  waited  until  a  full  effect  was  secured,  when 
he  lifted  his  limp  patient  to  the  blanket-covered  iron 
ing-table.  Then  he  went  out  for  fuel,  built  a  fire,  and, 
humming  softly — with  no  fear  of  waking  the  other- 
sat  down  to  watch  the  steeping  of  more  herbs. 

X******* 

What  happened  next  at  the  square-fronted  house 
was  the  unexpected.  Again  there  was  a  sound  of 
approaching  footsteps,  again  some  one  gained  the 
porch.  But  this  time  there  was  no  pausing  to  ask 
for  admission,  there  were  no  weak  requests  for  aid. 
A  swift  hand  felt  for  the  knob  and  found  it;  a  strong 
arm  pushed  at  the  unlocked  door.  And  through  it, 
bareheaded,  with  burning  eyes  and  blanched  cheeks, 
her  heavy  riding-whip  dangling  by  a  thong  from  her 
wrist,  came  the  wife  of  Anthony  Barrett. 

Just  across  the  sill  she  halted  and  swept  the  dim 
room.  A  moment,  and  the  burning  eyes  fell  upon 
the  freighted  ironing-table.  She  gave  a  piercing  cry. 

Fong  Wu  neither  spoke  nor  moved. 

After  the  first  outburst,  she  was  quiet — the  quiet 
that  is  deliberative,  threatening.  Then  she  slowly 

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closed  her  fingers  about  the  whip  butt.  Fixing  her 
gaze  in  passionate  anger  upon  him,  she  advanced  a 
few  steps. 

"  So  it  was  you,"  she  said,  and  her  voice  was 
hollow. 

To  that  he  made  no  sign,  and  even  his  colorless 
face  told  nothing. 

She  came  forward  a  little  farther,  and  sucked  in  a 
long,  deep  breath.  'You  dog  of  a  Chinaman!"  she 
said  at  last,  and  struck  her  riding-skirt. 

Fong  Wu  answered  silently.  With  an  imperative 
gesture,  he  pointed  out  the  figure  on  the  ironing- 
table. 

She  sprang  to  her  husband's  side  and  bent  over 
him.  Presently  she  began  to  murmur  to  herself. 
When,  finally,  she  turned,  there  were  tears  on  her 
lashes,  she  was  trembling  visibly,  and  she  spoke  in 
whispers. 

"Was  I  wrong?"  she  demanded  brokenly.  "I 
must  have  been.  He's  not  had  it;  I  can  tell  by  his 
quick,  easy  breathing.  And  his  ear  has  a  faint  color. 
You  are  trying  to  help  him!  I  know!  I  know!" 

A  gleaming  white  line  showed  between  the  yellow 
of  Fong  Wu's  lips.  He  picked  up  a  rude  stool  and 
set  it  by  the  table.  She  sank  weakly  upon  it,  letting 
the  whip  fall. 

"Thank  God!  thank  God!"  she  sobbed  prayer 
fully,  and  buried  her  face  in  her  arms. 

Throughout  the  long  hours  that  followed,  Fong 
Wu,  from  the  room's  shadowy  rear,  sat  watching. 
He  knew  sleep  did  not  come  to  her.  For  now  and 
then  he  saw  her  shake  from  head  to  heel  convul 
sively,  as  he  had  seen  men  in  his  own  country  quiver 

108 


m 


"  THE  PETAL  OF  A   PLUM   BLOSSOM." 

FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  ALBERTINE  RANDALL  WHEEL  AX. 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


beneath  the  scourge  of  bamboos.  Now  and  then, 
too,  he  heard  her  give  a  stifled  moan,  like  the  protest 
of  a  dumb  creature.  But  in  no  other  ways  did  she 
bare  her  suffering.  Quietly,  lest  she  wake  her  hus 
band,  she  fought  out  the  night. 

Only  once  did  Fong  Wu  look  away  from  her. 
Then,  in  anger  and  disgust  his  eyes  shifted  to  the 
figure  on  the  table.  "The  petal  of  a  plum  blos 
som"  -he  muttered  in  Chinese — "  the  petal  of  a  plum 
blossom  beneath  the  hoofs  of  a  pig!"  And  again 
his  eyes  dwelt  upon  the  grief-bowed  wife. 

But  when  the  dawn  came  stealing  up  from  behind 
the  purple  Sierras,  and  Mrs.  Barrett  raised  her  wan 
face,  he  was  studiously  reviewing  his  rows  of  bottles, 
outwardly  unaware  of  her  presence. 

"Fong  Wu,"  she  said,  in  a  low  voice,  "when  will 
he  wake  ?" 

"When   he  is   rested;    at    sunrise,    maybe,   or  at 


noon.'r 


"And  then?" 

"He  will  be  feeble.  I  shall  give  him  more  medi 
cine,  and  he  will  sleep  again." 

He  rose  and  busied  himself  at  the  fire.  Soon  he 
approached  her,  bringing  the  gold-encrusted  teapot 
and  a  small,  handleless  cup. 

She  drank  thirstily,  filling  and  emptying  the  cup 
many  times.  When  she  was  done,  she  made  as  if  to 
go.  "  I  shall  see  that  everything  is  all  right  at  home," 
she  told  him.  "After  that,  I  shall  come  back."  She 
stooped  and  kissed  her  husband  tenderly. 

Fong  Wu  opened  the  door  for  her,  and  she  passed 
out.  In  the  road,  unhitched,  but  waiting,  stood  the 
mustang,  She  mounted  and  rode  away, 

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When  she  returned,  not  long  afterward,  she  was 
a  new  woman.  She  had  bathed  her  face  and  donned 
a  fresh  w^aist.  Her  eyes  were  alight,  and  the  scarlet 
was  again  flaming  in  her  cheeks.  Almost  cheerfully, 
and  altogether  hopefully,  she  resumed  her  post  at 
the  ironing-table. 

It  was  late  in  the  afternoon  before  Barrett  woke. 
But  he  made  no  attempt  to  get  up,  and  would  not 
eat.  Fong  Wu  administered  another  dose  of  herbs, 
and  without  heeding  his  patient's  expostulations. 
The  latter,  after  seeking  his  wife's  hand,  once  more 
sank  into  sleep. 

Just  before  sunset,  Fong  Wu,  who  scorned  to  rest, 
prepared  supper.  Gratefully  Mrs.  Barrett  partook 
of  some  tender  chicken  and  rice  cakes.  When  dark 
ness  shut  down,  they  took  up  their  second  long  vigil. 

But  it  was  not  the  vigil  of  the  previous  night.  She 
was  able  to  think  of  other  things  than  her  husband's 
condition  and  the  doom  that,  of  a  sudden,  had  men 
aced  her  happiness.  Her  spirits  having  risen,  she 
was  correspondingly  impatient  of  a  protracted,  op 
pressive  stillness,  and  looked  about  for  an  interrup 
tion,  and  for  diversion.  Across  from  her,  a  celestial 
patrician  in  his  blouse  of  purple  silk  and  his  red- 
buttoned  cap,  sat  Fong  Wu.  Consumed  with  curios 
ity — now  that  she  had  time  to  observe  him  closely— 
she  longed  to  lift  the  yellow,  expressionless  mask 
from  his  face — a  face  which  might  have  patterned 
that  of  an  oriental  sphinx.  At  midnight,  when  he 
approached  the  table  to  satisfy  himself  of  Barrett's 
progress,  and  to  assure  her  of  it,  she  essayed  a  con 
versation. 

Glancing  up  at   his  laden  shelves,   she   said,  "I 

110 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


have  been  noticing  your  medicines,  and  how  many 
kinds  there  seem  to  be." 

"For  each  ailment  that  is  visited  upon  man,  earth 
offers  a  cure,"  he  answered.  "Life  would  be  a 
mock  could  Death,  unchallenged,  take  it." 

"True.  Have  you  found  in  the  earth,  then,  the 
cure  for  each  ailment  of  man?" 

"For  most,  yes.  They  seek  yet,  where  I  learned 
the  art  of  healing,  an  antidote  for  the  cobra's  bite.  I 
know  of  no  other  they  lack." 

"Where  you  were  taught  they  must  know  more 
than  we  of  this  country  know." 

Fong  Wu  gave  his  shoulders  a  characteristic 
shrug. 

"But,"  she  continued,  "you  speak  English  so 
perfectly.  Perhaps  you  were  taught  that  in  this 
country." 

"No — in  England.     But  the  other,  I  was  not." 

"In  England!     Well!" 

"I  went  there  as  a  young  man." 

"But  these  herbs,  these  medicines  you  have — 
they  did  not  come  from  England,  did  they?" 

He  smiled.     "Some  came  from  the  hills  at  our 
back."     Then,  crossing  to  his  shelves  and  reaching 
up,  "This"  —he  touched  a  silk-covered 'package— 
"is  from  Sumbawa  in  the  Indian  Sea;  and  this" 
his  finger  was  upon  the  cork  of  a  phial — "is  from 
Feng-shan,  Formosa;  and  other  roots  are  taken  in 
winter  from  the  lake  of  Ting-ting-hu,  which  is  then 
dry;  and  still  others  come  from  the  far  mountains 
of  Chamur." 

"Do  you  know,"  Mrs.  Barrett  said  tentatively, 
"I  have  always  heard  that  Chinese  doctors  give 

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horrid  things  for  medicine — sharks'  teeth,  frogs'  feet, 
lizards'  tails,  and — and  all  sorts  of  dreadful  things." 

Fong  Wu  proffered  no  enlightenment. 

"I  am  glad,"  she  went  on,  "that  I  have  learned 
better." 

After  a  while  she  began  again:  "Doubtless  there 
is  other  wonderful  knowledge,  besides  that  about 
doctoring,  which  Chinese  gentlemen  possess." 

Fong  Wu  gave  her  a  swift  glance.  "The  followers 
of  Laou-Tsze  know  many  things,"  he  replied,  and 
moved  into  the  shadows  as  if  to  close  their  talk. 

Toward  morning,  when  he  again  gave  her  some 
tea,  she  spoke  of  something  that  she  had  been  turn 
ing  over  in  her  mind  for  hours. 

:<You  would  not  take  money  for  helping  me  when 
I  was  hurt,"  she  said,  "and  I  presume  you  will  re 
fuse  to  take  it  for  what  you  are  doing  now.  But  I 
should  like  you  to  know  that  Mr.  Barrett  and  I  will 
always,  always  be  your  friends.  If"  —she  looked 
across  at  him,  no  more  a  part  of  his  rude  surroundings 
than  was  she—  "  if  ever  there  comes  a  time  when  we 
could  be  of  use  to  you,  you  have  only  to  tell  us.  Please 
remember  that." 

"I  will  remember." 

"I  cannot  help  but  feel,"  she  went  on,  and  with  a 
sincere  desire  to  prove  her  gratitude,  rather  than  to 
pry  out  any  secret  of  his,  "that  you  do  not  belong 
here — that  you  are  in  more  trouble  than  I  am.  For 
what  can  a  man  of  your  rank  have  to  do  in  a  little 
town  like  this!" 

He  was  not  displeased  with  her.  "The  ancient 
sage,"  he  said  slowly,  "  mounted  himself  upon  a  black 
ox  and  disappeared  into  the  western  wilderness  of 

112 


A  Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


Thibet.     Doubtless   others,   too,   seek   seclusion  for 
much  thinking." 

"But  you  are  not  the  hermit  kind,"  she  declared 
boldly.  'You  belong  to  those  who  stay  and  fight. 
Yet  here  you  are,  separated  from  your  people  and 
your  people's  graves— alone  and  sorrowful." 

"As  for  my  living  people,  they  are  best  without 
me;  as  for  my  people  dead,  I  neither  worship  their 
dust  nor  propitiate  devils.  The  wise  one  said,  'Why 
talk  forever  on  of  men  who  are  long  gone?" 

'Yet—        '  she  persisted. 

He  left  the  stove  and  came  near  her.  "You  are  a 
woman,  but  you  know  much.  You  are  right.  My 
heart  is  heavy  for  a  thing  I  cannot  do — for  the  shat 
tered  dreams  of  the  men  of  Hukwang."  He  beat  his 
palms  together  noiselessly,  and  moved  to  and  fro 
on  soft  sandals.  'Those  dreams  were  of  a  young 
China  that  was  to  take  the  place  of  the  old — but  that 
died  unborn." 

She  followed  his  words  with  growing  interest.  "I 
have  heard  of  those  dreams,"  she  answered;  "they 
were  called  'reform." 

'Yes.  And  now  all  the  dreamers  are  gone.  They 
had  voyaged  to  glean  at  Harvard,  Yale,  Cornell,  and 
in  the  halls  of  Oxford.  There  were  'five  loyal  and 
six  learned/  and  they  shed  their  blood  at  the  Chen 
Chih  Gate.  One  there  was  who  died  the  death  that 
is  meted  a  slave  at  the  court  of  the  Son  of  Heaven. 
And  one  there  was"  —his  face  shrank  up,  as  if  swiftly 
aging;  his  eyes  became  dark,  upturning  slits;  as  one 
who  fears  pursuit,  he  cast  a  look  behind  him—  "and 
one  there  was  who  escaped  beyond  the  blood-bathed 
walls  of  the  Hidden  City  and  gained  the  Sumatra 

113 


Coast.  Then,  leaving  Perak,  in  the  Straits  Settle 
ments,  he  finally  set  foot  upon  a  shore  where  men, 
without  terror,  may  reach  toward  higher  things." 

"And  was  he  folio  wed?"  she  whispered,  compre 
hending. 

"He  fled  quietly.  For  long  are  the  claws  of  the 
she-panther  crouched  on  the  throne  of  the  Mings." 

Both  fell  silent.  The  Chinese  went  back  to  the 
stove,  where  the  fire  was  dying.  The  white  woman, 
wide  awake,  and  lost  in  the  myriad  of  scenes  his  tale 
had  conjured,  sat  by  the  table,  for  once  almost  for 
getful  of  her  charge. 

The  dragging  hours  of  darkness  past,  Anthony 
Barrett  found  sane  consciousness.  He  was  pale,  yet 
strengthened  by  his  long  sleep,  and  he  was  hungry. 
Relieved  and  overjoyed,  Mrs.  Barrett  ministered  to 
him.  When  he  had  eaten  and  drunk,  she  helped  him 
from  the  table  to  the  stool,  and  thence  to  his  feet. 
Her  arm  about  him,  she  led  him  to  the  door.  Fong 
Wu  had  felt  his  pulse  and  it  had  ticked  back  the 
desired  message,  so  he  was  going  home. 

"Each  night  you  are  to  come,"  Fong  Wu  said,  as 
he  bade  them  good-by.  "And  soon,  very  soon,  you 
may  go  from  here  to  the  place  from  which  you  came." 

Mrs.  Barrett  turned  at  the  door.  A  plea  for  pardon 
in  misjudging  him,  thankfulness  for  his  help,  sym 
pathy  for  his  exile — all  these  shone  from  her  eyes. 
But  words  failed  her.  She  held  out  her  hand. 

He  seemed  not  to  see  it;  he  kept  his  arms  at  his 
sides.  A  "dog  of  a  Chinaman"  had  best  not  take  a 
woman's  hand. 

She  went  out,  guiding  her  husband's  footsteps,  and 
helped  him  climb  upon  the  mustang  from  the  height 

114 


Yellow  Man  and  a  White 


of  the  narrow  porch.  Then,  taking  the  horse  by  the 
bridle,  she  moved  away  down  the  slope  to  the  road. 

Fong  Wu  did  not  follow,  but  closed  the  door  gently 
and  went  back  to  the  ironing-table.  A  handkerchief 
lay  beside  it — a  dainty  linen  square  that  she  had  left. 
He  picked  it  up  and  held  it  before  him  by  two  corners. 
From  it  there  wafted  a  faint,  sweet  breath. 

Fong  Wu  let  it  flutter  to  the  floor.  "The  perfume 
of  a  plum  petal,"  he  said  softly,  in  English;  "the 
perfume  of  a  plum  petal." 


115 


THE  JUDGMENT 

OF  MAN 


BY 


JAMES  HOPPER 


Copyright,  1906,  by  McClure,  Phillips  and  Company 
Reprinted  from  Cay  big  an  by  permission 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  MAN 

E  WERE  sitting  around  the  big  center 
table  in  the  sala  of  the  "House  of 
Guests"  in  Ilo-Ilo.  We  were  teachers 
from  Occidental  Negros.  It  was  near 
Christmas;  we  had  left  our  stations 
for  the  holidays — the  cholera  had  just 
swept  them  and  the  aftermath  was  not  pleasant  to 
contemplate — and  so  we  were  leaning  over  the  pol 
ished  narra  table,  sipping  a  sweet,  false  Spanish 
wine  from  which  we  drew,  not  a  convivial  spirit,  but 
rather  a  quiet,  reflexive  gloom.  All  the  shell  shutters 
were  drawn  back;  we  could  see  the  tin-roofed  city 
gleam  and  crackle  with  the  heat,  and  beyond  the 
lithe  line  of  cocoanuts,  the  iridescent  sea,  tugging 
the  heart  with  offer  of  coolness.  But,  all  of  us,  we 
knew  the  promise  to  be  Fake,  monumental  Fake, 
knew  the  alluring  depths  to  be  hot  as  corruption, 
and  full  of  sharks. 

Somebody  in  a  monotonous  voice  was  cataloguing 
the  dead,  enumerating  those  of  us  who  had  been 
conquered  by  the  climate,  by  the  work,  or  through 
their  own  inward  flaws.  He  mentioned  Miller  with 
some  sort  of  disparaging  gesture,  and  then  Carter 
of  Balangilang,  who  had  been  very  silent,  suddenly 
burst  into  speech  with  singular  fury. 

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"  Who  are  you,  to  judge  him  ?  "  he  shouted.  "  Who 
are  you,  eh?  Who  are  we,  anyway,  to  judge  him?" 

Headlong  outbursts  from  Carter  were  nothing  new 
to  us,  so  we  took  no  offense.  Finally  some  one  said, 
"Well,  he's  dead,"  with  that  tone  that  signifies  final 
judgment,  the  last,  best,  most  charitable  thing  which 
can  be  said  of  the  man  being  weighed. 

But  Carter  did  not  stop  there.  :<You  didn't  know 
him,  did  you?"  he  asked.  "You  didn't  know  him; 
tell  me  now,  did  you  know  him?"  He  was  still  ex 
traordinarily  angry. 

We  did  not  answer.  Really,  we  knew  little  of  the 
dead  man — excepting  that  he  was  mean  and  small, 
and  not  worth  knowing.  He  was  mean,  and  he  was 
a  coward;  and  to  us  in  our  uncompromising  youth 
these  were  just  the  unpardonable  sins.  Because  of 
that  we  had  left  him  alone;  yes,  come  to  think  of  it, 
very  much  alone.  And  we  knew  little  about  him. 

"Here,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  know,"  Carter  began 
again,  in  a  more  conciliatory  tone;  "I'll  tell  you 
everything  I  know  of  him."  He  lit  a  cheroot. 

"  I  first  met  him  right  here  in  Ilo-Ilo.  I  had  crossed 
over  for  supplies;  he  was  fresh  from  Manila  and 
wanted  to  get  over  to  Bacolod  to  report  to  the  Sup. 
and  be  assigned  to  his  station.  When  I  saw  him  he 
was  on  the  muelle,  surrounded  by  an  army  of  bluffing 
cargadores.  About  twelve  of  them  had  managed  to 
get  a  finger  upon  his  lone  carpet-bag  while  it  was 
being  carried  down  the  gang-plank,  and  each  and  all 
of  them  wanted  to  get  paid  for  the  job.  He  was  in  a 
horrible  pickle;  couldn't  speak  a  word  of  Spanish  or 
Visayan.  And  the  first  thing  he  said  when  I  had 
extricated  him,  thanks  to  my  vituperative  knowledge 

120 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


of  these  sweet  tongues,  was:  'If  them  niggahs,  seh, 
think  Ah'm  a-goin'  to  learn  their  cussed  lingo, 
they're  mahtily  mistaken,  seh!' 

"After  that  remark,  coming  straight  from  the 
heart,  I  hardly  needed  to  be  told  that  he  was  from 
the  South.  He  was  from  Mississippi.  He  was  gaunt, 
yellow,  malarial,  and  slovenly.  He  had  'teached'  for 
twenty  years,  he  said,  but  in  spite  of  this  there  was 
about  him  something  indescribably  rural,  something 
of  the  sod — not  the  dignity,  the  sturdiness  of  it,  but 
rather  of  the  pettiness,  the  sordidness  of  it.  It 
showed  in  his  dirty,  flapping  garments,  his  unlaced 
shoes,  his  stubble  beard,  in  his  indecent  carelessness 
in  expectorating  the  tobacco  he  was  ceaselessly  chew 
ing.  But  these,  after  all,  were  some  of  his  minor 
traits.  I  was  soon  to  get  an  inkling  of  one  of  his 
major  ones — his  prodigious  meanness.  For  when  I 
rushed  about  and  finally  found  a  lorcha  that  was  to 
sail  for  Bacolod  and  asked  him  to  chip  in  with  me 
on  provisions,  he  demurred. 

"'Ah'd  like  to  git  my  own,  seh,'  he  said  in  that 
decisive  drawl  of  his. 

'"All  right,'  I  said  cheerfully,  and  went  off  and 
stocked  up  for  two.  My  instinct  served  me  well. 
When,  that  evening,  Miller  walked  up  the  gang 
plank,  he  carried  only  his  carpet-bag,  and  that  was 
flat  and  hungry-looking  as  before.  The  next  morning 
he  shared  my  provisions  calmly  and  resolutely,  with 
an  air,  almost,  of  conscious  duty.  Well,  let  that  go; 
before  another  day  I  was  face  to  face  with  his  other 
flaming  characteristic. 

"Out  of  Ilo-Ilo  we  had  contrary  winds  at  first; 
all  night  the  lorcha — an  old  grandmother  of  a  craft, 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


full  of  dry-rot  spots  as  big  as  woodpeckers'  nests— 
flapped  heavily  about  on  impotent  tacks,  and  when 
the  sun  rose  we  found  ourselves  on  the  same  spot 
from  which  we  had  watched  its  setting.  Toward 
ten  o'clock,  however,  the  monsoon  veered,  and,  wing- 
and-wing,  the  old  boat,  creaking  in  every  joint  as  if 
she  had  the  dengue,  grunted  her  way  over  flashing 
combers  with  a  speed  that  seemed  almost  indecent. 
Then,  just  as  we  were  getting  near  enough  to  catch 
the  heated  glitter  of  the  Bacolod  church-dome,  to  see 
the  golden  thread  of  beach  at  the  foot  of  the  waving 
cocoanuts,  the  wind  fell,  slap-bang,  as  suddenly  as 
if  God  had  said  hush — and  we  stuck  there,  motion 
less,  upon  a  petrified  sea. 

"I  didn't  stamp  about  and  foam  at  the  mouth; 
I'd  been  in  these  climes  too  long.  As  for  Miller,  he 
was  from  Mississippi.  We  picked  out  a  compara 
tively  clean  spot  on  the  deck,  near  the  bow;  we  lay 
down  on  our  backs  and  relaxed  our  beings  into  in 
finite  patience.  We  had  been  thus  for  perhaps  an 
hour;  I  was  looking  up  at  a  little  white  cloud  that 
seemed  receding,  receding  into  the  blue  immensity 
behind  it.  Suddenly  a  noise  like  thunder  roared  in 
my  ears.  The  little  cloud  gave  a  great  leap  back  into 
its  place;  the  roar  dwindled  into  the  voice  of  Miller, 
in  plaintive,  disturbed  drawl.  'What  the  deuce  are 
the  niggahs  doing?'  he  was  saying. 

"And  certainly  the  behavior  of  that  Visayan 
crew  was  worthy  of  question.  Huddled  quietly  at 
the  stern,  one  after  another  they  were  springing  over 
the  rail  into  the  small  boat  that  was  dragging  behind, 
and  even  as  I  looked  the  last  man  disappeared  with 
the  painter  in  his  hand.  At  the  same  moment  I 

122 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


became  aware  of  a  strange  noise.  Down  in  the  bowels 
of  the  lorcha  a  weird,  gentle  commotion  was  going 
on,  a  multitudinous  '  gluck-gluck '  as  of  many  bottles 
being  emptied.  A  breath  of  hot,  musty  air  was  sigh 
ing  out  of  the  hatch.  Then  the  sea  about  the  poop 
began  to  rise, — to  rise  slowly,  calmly,  steadily,  like 
milk  in  a  heated  pot. 

"By  the  powers/  I  shouted,  'the  old  tub  is  going 
down ! ' 

"It  was  true.  There,  upon  the  sunlit  sea,  beneath 
the  serene  sky,  silently,  weirdly,  unprovoked,  the  old 
boat,  as  if  weary,  was  sinking  in  one  long  sigh  of 
lassitude.  And  we,  of  course,  were  going  with  it.  A 
few  yards  away  from  the  stern-post  was  the  jolly-boat 
with  the  crew.  I  looked  at  them,  and  in  my  heart  I 
could  not  condemn  them  for  their  sly  departure; 
they  were  all  there,  arraiz,  wife,  children,  and  crew, 
so  heaped  together  that  they  seemed  only  a  meaning 
less  tangle  of  arms  and  legs  and  heads;  the  water  was 
half  an  inch  from  the  gunwale,  and  the  one  man  at 
the  oars,  hampered,  paralyzed  on  all  sides,  was 
splashing  helplessly  while  the  craft  pivoted  like  a  top. 
There  was  no  anger  in  my  heart,  yet  I  was  not  abso 
lutely  reconciled  to  the  situation.  I  searched  the 
deck  with  my  eyes,  then  from  the  jolly-boat  the  arraiz 
obligingly  yelled,  '  El  biroto,  el  biroto! ' 

"And  I  remembered  the  rotten  little  canoe  lashed 
amidships.  It  didn't  take  us  long  to  get  it  into  the 
water  (the  water  by  that  time  was  very  close  at  hand). 
I  went  carefully  into  it  first  so  as  to  steady  it  for  Mil 
ler,  and  then,  both  of  us  at  once,  we  saw  that  it  would 
hold  only  one.  The  bottom,  a  hollowed  log,  was 
stanch  enough,  but  the  sides,  made  of  pitched 

123 


TSpmnerBook  of  Fiction 


bamboo  lattice,  were  sagging  and  torn.     It  would 
hold  only  one. 

'  Well,  who  is  it  ? '  I  asked.  In  my  heart  there 
was  no  craven  panic,  but  neither  was  there  sacrifice. 
Some  vague  idea  was  in  my  mind,  of  deciding  who 
should  get  the  place  by  some  game  of  chance,  tossing 
up  a  coin,  for  instance. 

"But  Miller  said,  'Ah  cain't  affawd  to  take 
chances,  seh;  you  must  git  out.' 

"He  spoke  calmly,  with  great  seriousness,  but 
without  undue  emphasis — as  one  enunciating  an 
uncontrovertible  natural  law.  I  glanced  up  into  his 
face,  and  it  was  in  harmony  with  his  voice.  He  didn't 
seem  particularly  scared;  he  was  serious,  that's  all; 
his  eyes  were  set  in  that  peculiar,  wide-pupiled  stare 
of  the  man  contemplating  his  own  fixed  idea. 

"'No,  seh;  Ah  cain't  affawd  it,'  he  repeated. 

"The  absurdity  of  the  thing  suddenly  tingled  in 
me  like  wine.  'All  right!'  I  shouted,  in  a  contagion 
of  insanity;  'all  right,  take  the  darned  thing!' 

"And  I  got  out.  I  got  out  and  let  him  step  stiffly 
into  the  boat,  which  I  obligingly  sent  spinning  from 
the  lorcha  with  one  long,  strong  kick.  Then  I  was 
alone  on  the  deck,  which  suddenly  looked  immense, 
stretched  on  all  sides,  limitless  as  loneliness  itself.  A 
heavy  torpor  fell  from  the  skies  and  amid  this  general 
silence,  this  immobility,  the  cabin  door  alone  seemed 
to  live,  live  in  weird  manifestation.  It  had  been  left 
open,  and  now  it  was  swinging  and  slamming  to  and 
fro  jerkily,  and  shuddering  from  top  to  bottom.  Half 
in  plan,  half  in  mere  irritation  at  this  senseless,  in 
cessant  jigging,  I  sprang  toward  it  and  with  one 
nervous  pull  tore  it,  hinge  and  all,  from  the  rotten 

124 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


woodwork.  I  heaved  it  over  the  side,  went  in  head 
first  after  it,  took  a  few  strokes  and  lay,  belly  down, 
upon  it.  Just  then  the  lorcha  began  to  rise  by  the 
head ;  the  bowsprit  went  up  slowly  like  a  finger  point 
ing  solemnly  to  heaven;  then,  without  a  sound,  al 
most  instantaneously,  the  whole  fabric  disappeared. 
Across  the  now  unoccupied  space  Miller  and  I 
rushed  smoothly  toward  each  other,  as  if  drawn  by 
some  gigantic  magnet;  our  crafts  bumped  gently, 
like  two  savages  caressingly  rubbing  noses;  they 
swung  apart  a  little  and  lay  side  by  side,  undulating 
slightly. 

"And  we  remained  there,  little  black  specks  upon 
the  flashing  sea.  Two  hundred  yards  away  was  the 
lorcha's  boat;  they  had  reshuffled  themselves  more 
advantageously  and  were  pulling  slowly  toward  land. 
Not  twenty  feet  from  me  Miller  sat  upright  in  his 
canoe  as  if  petrified.  I  was  not  so  badly  off.  The 
door  floated  me  half  out  of  water,  and  that  was  luke 
warm,  so  I  knew  that  I  could  stand  it  a  long  time. 
What  bothered  me,  though,  was  that  the  blamed  raft 
was  not  long  enough;  that  is,  the  upper  part  of  my 
body  being  heavier,  it  took  more  door  to  support  it, 
so  that  my  feet  were  projecting  beyond  the  lower 
edge,  and  every  second  or  so  the  nibbling  of  some 
imaginary  shark  sent  them  flying  up  into  the  air  in 
undignified  gymnastics.  The  consoling  part  of  it 
was  that  Miller  was  paying  no  notice.  He  still  sat 
up,  rigid,  in  his  canoe,  clutching  the  sides  stiffly  and 
looking  neither  to  right  nor  left.  From  where  I  lay 
I  could  see  the  cords  of  his  neck  drawn  taut,  and  his 
knuckles  showing  white. 

'Why  the  deuce  don't  you  paddle  to  shore?'  I 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


shouted  at  length,  taking  a  sudden  disgust  of  the 
situation. 

"He  did  not  turn  his  head  as  he  answered,  'Ah — 
Ah,'  he  stammered,  the  words  coming  hard  as  hic 
coughs  out  of  his  throat,  'Ah  don't  know  haow.' 

"Drop  the  sides  of  your  boat  and  try,'  I  sug 
gested. 

"He  seemed  to  ponder  carefully  over  this  for  a 
while.  'Ah  think  it's  safer  to  stay  this-a-way,'  he 
decided  finally. 

"But,  good  Lord,  man,'  I  cried,  angry  at  this 
calm  stupidity,  'if  that's  what  you're  going  to  do, 
you'd  better  get  on  this  door  here  and  let  me  take 
the  boat.  I'll  paddle  ashore  and  come  back  for  you.' 

"He  turned  his  head  slowly.  He  contemplated 
my  raft  long,  carefully,  critically. 

"Ah  think  Ah'll  be  safer  heyah,  seh,'  he  decided. 
'It's  a  little  bit  o'  old  door,  and  Ah  reckon  they's  a 
heap  of  sharks  around.' 

"After  that  I  had  little  to  say.  Given  the  premises 
of  the  man,  his  conclusions  were  unquestionable.  And 
the  premises  were  a  selfishness  so  tranquil,  so  in 
genuous,  so  fresh,  I  might  say,  that  I  couldn't  work 
up  the  proper  indignation.  It  was  something  so 
perfect  as  to  challenge  admiration.  On  the  whole, 
however,  it  afforded  a  poor  subject  for  conversation; 
so  we  remained  there,  taciturn,  I  on  my  door,  half- 
submerged  in  the  tepid  water,  my  heels  flung  up  over 
my  back,  he  in  his  dugout,  rigid,  his  hands  clutching 
the  sides  as  if  he  were  trying  to  hold  up  the  craft  out 
of  the  liquid  abyss  beneath. 

"And  thus  we  were  still  when,  just  as  the  sun  was 
setting  somberly,  a  velos  full  of  chattering  natives 

126 


NOT  TWENTY  FEET  FROM   ME  MlLLER  SAT  UPRIGHT 
IN  HIS  CANOE  AS  IF  PETRIFIED." 

FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  MERLE  JOHNSON. 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


picked  us  up.  They  landed  us  at  Bacolod,  and  Miller 
left  me  to  report  to  the  Sup.  I  departed  before  sun-up 
the  next  morning  for  my  station.  I  didn't  want  to 
see  Miller  again. 

"But  I  did.  One  night  he  came  floundering 
through  my  pueblo.  It  was  in  the  middle  of  the 
rainy  season.  He  wasn't  exactly  caked  with  mud; 
rather,  he  seemed  to  ooze  it  out  of  every  pore.  He 
had  been  assigned  to  Binalbagan,  ten  miles  further 
down.  I  stared  when  he  told  me  this.  Binalbagan 
was  the  worst  post  on  the  island,  a  musty,  pestilen 
tial  hole  with  a  sullenly  hostile  population,  and  he- 
well,  inefficiency  was  branded  all  over  him  in  six- 
foot  letters.  I  tried  to  stop  him  overnight,  but  he 
would  not  do  it,  and  I  saw  him  splash  off  in  the  dark 
ness,  gaunt,  yellow,  mournful. 

"I  saw  little  of  him  after  that.  I  was  busy  estab 
lishing  new  barrio-schools,  which  were  to  give  me 
excuses  for  long  horseback  rides  of  inspection.  I 
felt  his  presence  down  there  in  that  vague  way  by 
which  you  are  aware  of  a  person  behind  your  back 
without  turning  around.  Rumors  of  his  doings 
reached  me.  He  was  having  a  horrible  time.  On 
the  night  of  his  arrival  he  had  been  invited  to  dinner 
by  the  Presidente,  a  kind  old  primitive  soul,  but  when 
he  found  that  he  was  expected  to  sit  at  the  table  with 
the  family,  he  had  stamped  off,  indignant,  saying 
that  he  didn't  eat  with  no  niggers.  As  I've  said 
before,  the  town  was  hostile,  and  this  attitude  did 
not  help  matters  much.  He  couldn't  get  the  school 
moneys  out  of  the  Tesorero — an  unmitigated  ras 
cal — but  that  did  not  make  much  difference,  for  he 
had  no  pupils  anyhow.  He  couldn't  speak  a  word  of 

127 


Spanish;  no  one  in  the  town,  of  course,  knew  any 
English — he  must  have  been  horribly  lonely.  He 
began  to  wear  camisas,  like  the  natives.  That's  al 
ways  a  bad  sign.  It  shows  that  the  man  has  dis 
covered  that  there  is  no  one  to  care  how  he  dresses — 
that  is,  that  there  is  no  longer  any  public  opinion.  It 
indicates  something  subtly  worse — that  the  man  has 
ceased  looking  at  himself,  that  the  /  has  ceased  criti 
cising,  judging,  stiffening  up  the  me, — in  other  words, 
that  there  is  no  longer  any  conscience.  That  white 
suit,  I  tell  you,  is  a  wonderful  moral  force;  the  white 
suit,  put  on  fresh  every  morning,  heavily  starched, 
buttoned  up  to  the  chin,  is  like  an  armor,  ironclad- 
ding  you  against  the  germ  of  decay  buzzing  about 
you,  ceaselessly  vigilant  for  the  little  vulnerable  spot. 
Miller  wore  camisas,  and  then  he  began  to  go  without 
shoes.  I  saw  that  myself.  I  was  riding  through  his 
pueblo  on  my  way  to  Dent's,  and  I  passed  his  school. 
I  looked  into  the  open  door  as  my  head  bobbed  by 
at  the  height  of  the  stilt-raised  floor.  He  was  in  his 
camisa  and  barefooted;  his  long  neck  stretched  out 
of  the  collarless  garment  with  a  mournful,  stork-like 
expression.  Squatting  on  the  floor  were  three 
trouserless,  dirt-incrusted  boys;  he  was  pointing  at 
a  chart  standing  before  their  eyes,  and  all  together 
they  were  shouting  some  word  that  exploded  away 
down  in  their  throats  in  tremendous  effort  and  never 
seemed  to  reach  their  lips.  I  called  out  and  waved 
my  hand  as  I  went  by,  and  when  I  looked  back,  a 
hundred  yards  farther,  I  saw  that  he  had  come  out 
upon  the  bamboo  platform  outside  of  the  door,  gap 
ing  after  me  with  his  chin  thrown  forward  in  that 
mournful,  stork-like  way — I  should  have  gone  back. 

128 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


"With  him,  I  must  say,  the  camisa  did  not  mean 
all  that  I  have  suggested,  not  the  sort  of  degradation 
of  which  it  is  the  symbol  in  other  men.  The  most 
extravagant  imagination  could  not  have  linked  him 
with  anything  that  smacked  of  romance,  romance 
however  sordid.  His  vices,  I  had  sized  it,  would 
come  rather  from  an  excess  of  calculation  than  from 
a  lack  of  it.  No,  that  camisa  was  just  a  sign  of  his 
meanness,  his  prodigious  meanness.  And  of  that  I 
was  soon  given  an  extraordinary  example. 

"I  had  with  me  a  young  fellow  named  Ledesma, 
whom  I  was  training  to  be  assistant  maestro.  He 
was  very  bright,  thirsty  to  learn,  and  extremely 
curious  of  us  white  men.  I  don't  believe  that  the 
actions  of  one  of  them,  for  fifty  miles  around,  ever 
escaped  him,  and  every  day  he  came  to  me  with  some 
talk,  some  rumor,  some  gossip  about  my  fellow- 
exiles  which  he  would  relate  to  me  with  those  strange 
interrogative  inflections  that  he  had  brought  from 
his  native  dialect  into  English — as  if  perpetually  he 
were  seeking  explanation,  confirmation.  One  morning 
he  said  to  me:  'The  maestro  Miller,  he  does  not  eat.' 

"No?'  I  answered,  absent-mindedly. 

"No,  he  never  eats,'  he  reiterated  authoritatively, 
although  that  peculiar  Visayan  inflection  of  which 
I  have  spoken  gave  him  the  air  of  asking  a  question. 

"Oh,  I  suppose  he  does,'  I  said,  carelessly. 

"He  does  not  eat,'  he  repeated.  'Every  one  in 
Binalbagan  say  so.  Since  he  there,  he  has  not 
bought  anything  at  the  store.' 

' '  His  muchachos  bring  him  chicken,'  I  suggested. 

"No,  senor;  he  very  funny;  he  has  no  muchachos; 
not  one  muchacho  has  he.' 

129 


"'Well,  he  probably  has  canned  provisions  sent 
him.' 

"'No,  sefior;  the  cargadores  they  say  that  never, 
never  have  they  carried  anything  for  him.  He  does 
not  eat.' 

"'Very  well,'  I  concluded,  somewhat  amused;  'he 
does  not  eat.' 

"The  boy  was  silent  for  a  minute,  then,  'Senor 
Maestro,'  he  asked  with  suspicious  ingenuousness, 
'can  Americans  live  without  eating?' 

"So  that  I  was  not  able  to  drop  the  subject  as 
easily  as  I  wished.  And  coming  to  a  forced  consid 
eration  of  it,  I  found  that  my  anxiety  to  do  so  was 
not  very  beautiful  after  all.  A  picture  came  to  me— 
that  of  Miller  on  his  bamboo  platform  before  his 
door,  gazing  mournfully  after  me,  his  chin  thrown 
forward.  It  did  not  leave  me  the  day  long,  and  at 
sundown  I  saddled  up  and  trotted  off  toward  Binal- 
bagan. 

"I  didn't  reach  the  pueblo  that  night,  however. 
Only  a  mile  from  it  I  plunged  out  of  the  moonlight 
into  the  pitch  darkness  of  a  hollow  lane  cutting 
through  Don  Jaime's  hacienda.  Banana  palms 
were  growing  thick  to  right  and  left;  the  way  was 
narrow  and  deep — it  was  a  fine  place  for  cutthroats, 
but  that  avocation  had  lost  much  of  its  romantic 
charm  from  the  fa<5t  that,  not  three  weeks  before, 
an  a6lual  cutthroating  had  taken  place,  a  Chinese 
merchant  having  been  boloed  by  tusilanes.  Well,  I 
was  trotting  through,  my  right  hand  somewhat  close 
to  my  holster,  when  from  the  right,  close,  there  came 
a  soft,  reiterated  chopping  noise.  I  pulled  up  my 
pony.  The  sound  kept  up — a  discreet,  persistent 

130 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


chopping;  then  I  saw,  up  above,  the  moonlit  top  of 
a  palm  shuddering,  though  all  about  it  the  others 
remained  motionless,  petrified  as  if  of  solid  silver. 
It  was  a  very  simple  thing  after  all :  some  one  in  there 
was  cutting  down  a  palm  to  get  bananas,  an  occupa 
tion  very  common  in  the  Philippines,  and  very  pacific, 
in  spite  of  the  ominous  air  given  to  it  by  the  gigantic 
bolo  used.  However,  something  prompted  me  to 
draw  the  midnight  harvester  out. 

"'Heh,  ladron,  what  are  you  doing  there?'  I 
shouted  in  dialect. 

" '  There  was  a  most  sudden  silence.  The  chopping 
ceased,  the  palm  stopped  vibrating.  A  vague  form 
bounded  down  the  lane,  right  up  against  my  horse's 
nose,  rolled  over,  straightened  up  again,  and  van 
ished  into  the  darkness  ahead.  Unconsciously  I 
spurred  on  after  it.  For  a  hundred  yards  I  galloped 
with  nothing  in  sight.  Then  I  caught  a  rapid  view 
of  the  thing  as  it  burst  through  a  shaft  of  moonlight 
piercing  the  glade,  and  it  showed  as  a  man,  a  gro 
tesque  figure  of  a  man  in  loose  white  pantaloons.  He 
was  frightened,  horribly  frightened,  all  hunched  up 
with  the  frenzy  to  escape.  An  indistinct  bundle  was 
on  his  right  shoulder.  Like  a  curtain  the  dark 
snapped  shut  behind  him  again,  but  I  urged  on  with 
a  wild  hallo,  my  blood  all  a-tingle  with  the  exulta 
tion  of  the  chase.  I  gained — he  must  have  been  a 
lamentable  runner,  for  my  poor  little  pony  was  stag 
gering  under  my  tumultuous  weight.  I  could  hear 
him  pant  and  sob  a  few  yards  in  advance;  then  he 
came  into  sight,  a  dim,  loping  whiteness  ahead. 
Suddenly  the  bundle  left  his  shoulder;  something 
rolled  along  the  ground  under  my  horse's  hoofs — 

131 


and  I  was  standing  on  my  head  in  a  soft,  oozy  place. 
I  was  mad,  furiously  mad.  I  picked  myself  up,  went 
back  a  few  yards,  and  taking  my  pony  by  the  nose 
picked  him  up.  A  touch  of  his  throbbing  flanks,  how 
ever,  warned  me  as  I  was  putting  my  foot  into  the 
stirrup.  I  left  him  there  and  thundered  on  foot  down 
the  lane.  I  have  said  I  was  mad.  'Yip-yip-yah-ah, 
yip-yip-yah-ah ! '  I  yelled  as  I  dashed  on — a  yell  I  had 
heard  among  California  cattlemen.  It  must  have 
paralyzed  that  flying  personage,  for  I  gained  upon 
him  shockingly.  I  could  hear  him  pant,  a  queer, 
patient  panting,  a  sigh  rather,  a  gentle,  lamenting 
sighing,  and  the  white  camisa  flapped  ghostily  in  the 
darkness.  Suddenly  he  burst  out  of  obscurity,  past 
the  plantation,  into  the  glaring  moonlight.  And  I— 
I  stopped  short,  went  down  on  my  hands  and  knees, 
and  crouched  back  into  the  shadow.  For  the  man 
running  was  Miller;  Miller,  wild,  sobbing,  disheveled, 
his  shoulders  drawn  up  to  his  ears  in  terrible  weari 
ness,  his  whole  body  taut  with  fear,  and  scudding, 
scudding  away,  low  along  the  ground,  his  chin  for 
ward,  mournful  as  a  stork.  Soon  he  was  across  the 
luminous  space,  and  then  he  disappeared  into  the 
darkness  on  the  other  side,  flopped  head  first  into  it 
as  if  hiding  his  face  in  a  pillow. 

"I  returned  slowly  to  my  horse.  He  was  standing 
where  I  had  left  him,  his  four  legs  far  apart  in  a  wide 
base.  Between  them  was  the  thing  cast  off  by  Miller 
which  had  thrown  us.  I  examined  it  by  the  light  of 
a  box  of  matches.  It  was  a  bunch  of  bananas,  one 
of  those  gigantic  clusters  which  can  be  cut  from  the 
palms.  I  got  on  my  horse  and  rode  back  home. 

"I  didn't  go  to  see  him  any  more.     A  man  who  will 

132 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


steal  bananas  in  a  country  where  they  can  be  bought 
a  dozen  for  one  cent  is  too  mean  to  be  worth  visiting. 
I  had  another  reason,  too.  It  had  dawned  on  me 
that  Miller  probably  did  not  care  to  see  any  of  us, 
that  he  had  come  down  to  a  mode  of  life  which  would 
not  leave  him  appreciative  of  confrontations  with 
past  standards.  It  was  almost  charity  to  leave  him 
to  himself. 

"So  I  left  him  to  himself,  and  he  lived  on  in  his 
pestilential  little  hole,  alone — lived  a  life  more  squalid 
every  day.  It  wasn't  at  all  a  healthy  life,  you  can 
understand,  no  healthier  physically  than  morally. 
After  a  while  I  heard  that  he  was  looking  bad,  yellow 
as  a  lemon,  and  the  dengue  cracking  at  his  bones.  I 
began  to  think  of  going  to  him  after  all,  of  jerking 
him  out  of  his  rut  by  force,  if  necessary,  making  him 
respect  the  traditions  of  his  race.  But  just  then  came 
that  Nichols  affair,  and  flaring,  his  other  bad  side— 
his  abje<5l  cowardice — reappeared  to  me.  You  re 
member  the  Nichols  thing — boloed  in  the  dark  be 
tween  my  town  and  Himamaylan.  His  muchacho 
had  jumped  into  the  ditch.  Afterward  he  got  out 
and  ran  back  the  whole  way,  fifteen  miles,  to  my 
place.  I  started  down  there.  My  idea  was  to  pick  up 
Miller  as  I  passed,  then  Dent  a  little  further  down, 
find  the  body,  and  perhaps  indications  for  White  of 
the  constabulary,  to  whom  I  had  sent  a  messenger 
and  who  could  not  reach  the  place  till  morning. 
Well,  Miller  refused  to  go.  He  had  caught  hold  of 
some  rumor  of  the  happening;  he  was  barricaded 
in  his  hut  and  was  sitting  on  his  bed,  a  big  Colt's 
revolver  across  his  knees.  He  would  not  go,  he  said 
it  plainly.  'No,  seh;  Ah  cain't  take  chances;  Ah 

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TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


cain't  affawd  it.'  He  said  this  without  much  fire, 
almost  tranquilly,  exactly  as  he  had,  you  remember, 
at  the  time  of  our  shipwreck.  It  was  not  so  amusing 
now,  however.  Here,  on  land,  amid  this  swarming, 
mysterious  hostility,  at  this  crisis,  it  seemed  a  shock 
ing  betrayal  of  the  solidarity  that  bound  all  us  white 
men.  A  red  rage  took  possession  of  me.  I  stood 
there  above  him  and  poured  out  vituperation  for 
five  good  minutes.  I  found  the  most  extraordinary 
epithets;  I  lowered  my  voice  and  pierced  him  with 
venomous  thrusts.  He  took  it  all.  He  remained  seat 
ed  on  his  bed,  his  revolver  across  his  knees,  looking 
straight  at  some  spot  on  the  floor;  whenever  I'd  be 
come  particularly  effective  he'd  merely  look  harder 
at  the  spot,  as  if  for  him  it  contained  something  of 
higher  significance — a  command,  a  rule,  a  precept— 
I  don't  know  what,  and  then  he'd  say,  'No,  Ah 
cain't;  Ah  cain't  affawd  it.' 

"I  burst  out  of  there,  a-roar  like  a  bombshell.  I 
rode  down  to  Dent;  we  rode  down  to  the  place  and 
did — what  there  was  to  be  done.  Miller  I  never 
wanted  to  see  again. 

"But  I  did.  Some  three  weeks  later  a  carrier 
came  to  me  with  a  note — a  penciled  scrawl  upon  a 
torn  piece  of  paper.  It  read: 

"  4I  think  I  am  dying.     Can  you  come  see  me  ? 

'MILLER.' 

"I  went  down  right  away.  He  was  dead.  He  had 
died  there,  alone,  in  his  filthy  little  hut,  in  that  God 
forsaken  pueblo,  ten  miles  from  the  nearest  white 
man,  ten  thousand  miles  from  his  home. 

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The  Judgment  of  Man 


"I'll  always  remember  our  coming  in.  It  was 
night.  It  had  been  raining  for  thirty-six  hours,  and 
as  we  stepped  into  the  unlighted  hut,  my  muchacho 
and  I,  right  away  the  floor  grew  sticky  and  slimy  with 
the  mud  on  our  feet,  and  as  we  groped  about  blindly, 
we  seemed  ankle-deep  in  something  greasy  and  abom 
inable  like  gore.  After  a  while  the  boy  got  a  torch 
outside,  and  as  he  flared  it  I  caught  sight  of  Miller  on 
his  cot,  backed  up  into  one  corner.  He  was  sitting 
upright,  staring  straight  ahead  and  a  little  down,  as 
if  in  careful  consideration.  As  I  stepped  toward 
him  the  pliable  bamboo  floor  undulated;  the  move 
ment  was  carried  to  him  and  he  began  to  nod,  very 
gently  and  gravely.  He  seemed  to  be  saying:  'No, 
Ah  cain't  affawd  it.'  It  was  atrocious.  Finally  I 
was  by  his  side  and  he  was  again  motionless,  staring 
thoughtfully.  Then  I  saw  he  was  considering.  In 
his  hands,  which  lay  twined  on  his  knees,  were  a  lot 
of  little  metallic  oblongs.  I  disengaged  them.  The 
muchacho  drew  nearer,  and  with  the  torch  over  my 
shoulder  I  examined  them.  They  were  photographs, 
cheap  tintypes.  The  first  was  of  a  woman,  a  poor 
being,  sagging  with  overwork,  a  lamentable  baby  in 
her  arms.  The  other  pictures  were  of  children — six 
of  them,  boys  and  girls,  of  all  ages  from  twelve  to 
three,  and  under  each,  in  painful  chirography,  a 
name  was  written — Lee  Miller,  Amy  Miller,  Geral- 
dine  Miller,  and  so  on. 

'You  don't  understand,  do  you?  For  a  moment 
I  didn't.  I  stared  stupidly  at  those  tintypes,  shuf 
fled  and  reshuffled  them;  the  torch  roaredin  my  ear. 
Then,  suddenly,  understanding  came  to  me,  sharp  as 
a  pang.  He  had  a  wife  and  seven  children. 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"A  simple  fa6t,  wasn't  it,  a  commonplace  one, 
almost  vulgar,  you  might  say.  And  yet  what  a 
change  of  view  produced  by  it,  what  a  dislocation  of 
judgment!  I  was  like  a  man  riding  through  a  strange 
country,  in  a  storm,  at  night.  It  is  dark,  he  cannot 
see,  he  has  never  seen  the  country,  yet  as  he  rides  on 
he  begins  to  picture  to  himself  the  surroundings,  his 
imagination  builds  for  him  a  landscape — a  mountain 
there,  a  river  here,  wind-streaming  trees  over  there — 
and  right  away  it  exists,  it  is,  it  has  solidity,  mass, 
life.  Then  suddenly  comes  a  flash  of  lightning,  a 
second  of  light,  and  he  is  astounded,  absolutely 
astounded  to  see  the  real  landscape  different  from 
that  indestructible  thing  that  his  mind  had  built. 
Thus  it  was  with  me.  I  had  judged,  oh,  I  had  judged 
him  thoroughly,  sized  him  up  to  a  certainty,  and 
bang,  came  the  flare  of  this  new  fa6l,  this  extremely 
commonplace  f a6l,  and  I  was  all  off.  I  must  begin  to 
judge  again,  only  it  would  never  do  that  man  any  good. 

"A  hundred  memories  came  back  to  me,  glared  at 
me  in  the  illumination  of  that  new  fa 61.  I  remem 
ber  the  camisa,  the  bare  feet.  I  saw  him  running 
down  the  lane  with  his  bunch  of  stolen  bananas.  I 
recalled  that  absurd  scene  on  the  waters;  I  heard 
him  say:  'No,  seh;  Ah  cain't  affawd  to  take  chances; 
Ah  cain't  affawd  it.' 

"Of  course  he  couldn't  afford  it.  Think — a  wife 
and  seven  children! 

"That  night  I  went  through  his  papers,  putting 
things  in  order,  and  from  every  leaf,  every  scrap, 
came  corroboration  of  the  new  fa<5t.  He  was  one  of 
those  pitiful  pedagogues  of  the  rural  South,  shiftless, 
half-educated,  inefficient.  He  had  never  been  able 

136 


The  Judgment  of  Man 


to  earn  much,  and  his  family  had  always  gently 
starved.  Then  had  come  the  chance — the  golden 
chance — the  Philippines  and  a  thousand  a  year. 
He  had  taken  the  bait,  had  come  ten  thousand  miles 
to  the  spot  of  his  maximum  value.  Only,  things  had 
not  gone  quite  right.  Thanks  to  the  beautiful  red- 
tape  of  the  department,  three  months  had  gone 
before  he  had  received  his  first  month's  pay.  Then 
it  had  come  in  Mex.,  and  when  he  had  succeeded 
in  changing  it  into  gold  it  had  dwindled  to  sixty 
dollars.  Of  course,  he  had  sent  it  all  back,  for  even 
then  it  would  take  it  six  more  weeks  to  reach  its 
destination,  and  sixty  dollars  is  hardly  too  much  to 
tide  over  five  months  for  a  family  of  eight.  These 
five  months  had  to  be  caught  up  in  some  way,  so 
every  month  his  salary,  depreciated  ten  per  cent  by 
the  change,  had  gone  across  the  waters.  He  wore 
camisas  and  no  shoes,  he  stole  bananas.  And  his 
value,  shoeless,  camim-clothed,  was  sixty  dollars  a 
month.  He  was  just  so  much  capital.  He  had  to 
be  careful  of  that  capital. 

"'Ah  cain't  affawd  to  take  chances;  Ah  cain't 
affawd  it.'  Of  course  he  couldn't. 

"And  so  he  had  fought  on  blindly,  stubbornly, 
and,  at  last,  with  that  pitiful  faculty  we  have,  all 
of  us,  of  defeating  our  own  plans,  he  had  killed 
himself,  he  had  killed  the  capital,  the  golden  goose. 

"Yes,  I  found  confirmation,  but,  after  all,  I  did 
not  need  it.  I  had  learned  it  all;  understanding 
had  come  to  me,  swift,  sharp,  vital  as  a  pang,  when 
in  the  roaring  light  of  the  torch  I  had  looked  upon 
the  pale  little  tintypes,  the  tintypes  of  Lee  and  Amy 
and  Jackson  aud  Geraldine." 

137 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  THE 
OLD  MEN 


BY 


JACK  LONDON 


Copyright,  1902,  by  the  Macmillan  Company 

Reprinted  from  CHILDREN  OF  THE  FROST 

by  permission 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  THE 
OLD  MEN 

T  THE  Barracks  a  man  was  being 
tried  for  his  life.  He  was  an  old  man, 
a  native  from  the  Whitefish  River, 
which  empties  into  the  Yukon  below 
Lake  Le  Barge.  All  Dawson  was 
wrought  up  over  the  affair,  and  like 
wise  the  Yukon-dwellers  for  a  thousand  miles  up  and 
down.  It  has  been  the  custom  of  the  land-robbing 
and  sea-robbing  Anglo-Saxon  to  give  the  law  to  con 
quered  peoples,  and  ofttimes  this  law  is  harsh.  But 
in  the  case  of  Imber  the  law  for  once  seemed  inade 
quate  and  weak.  In  the  mathematical  nature  of 
things,  equity  did  not  reside  in  the  punishment  to 
be  accorded  him.  The  punishment  was  a  foregone 
conclusion,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  that;  and 
though  it  was  capital,  Imber  had  but  one  life,  while 
the  tale  against  him  was  one  of  scores. 

In  fa6l,  the  blood  of  so  many  was  upon  his  hands 
that  the  killings  attributed  to  him  did  not  permit  of 
precise  enumeration.  Smoking  a  pipe  by  the  trail- 
side  or  lounging  around  the  stove,  men  made  rough 
estimates  of  the  numbers  that  had  perished  at  his 
hand.  They  had  been  whites,  all  of  them,  these 
poor  murdered  people,  and  they  had  been  slain 
singly,  in  pairs,  and  in  parties.  And  so  purposeless 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


and  wanton  had  been  these  killings,  that  they  had 
long  been  a  mystery  to  the  mounted  police,  even  in 
the  time  of  the  captains,  and  later,  when  the  creeks 
realized,  and  a  governor  came  from  the  Dominion 
to  make  the  land  pay  for  its  prosperity. 

But  more  mysterious  still  was  the  coming  of  Im- 
ber  to  Dawson  to  give  himself  up.  It  was  in  the 
late  spring,  when  the  Yukon  was  growling  and 
writhing  under  its  ice,  that  the  old  Indian  climbed 
painfully  up  the  bank  from  the  river  trail  and  stood 
blinking  on  the  main  street.  Men  who  had  wit 
nessed  his  advent,  noted  that  he  was  weak  and 
tottery,  and  that  he  staggered  over  to  a  heap  of 
cabin-logs  and  sat  down.  He  sat  there  a  full  day, 
staring  straight  before  him  at  the  unceasing  tide  of 
white  men  that  flooded  past.  Many  a  head  jerked 
curiously  to  the  side  to  meet  his  stare,  and  more  than 
one  remark  was  dropped  anent  the  old  Siwash  with 
so  strange  a  look  upon  his  face.  No  end  of  men 
remembered  afterward  that  they  had  been  struck 
by  his  extraordinary  figure,  and  forever  afterward 
prided  themselves  upon  their  swift  discernment  of 
the  unusual. 

But  it  remained  for  Dickensen,  Little  Dickensen, 
to  be  the  hero  of  the  occasion.  Little  Dickensen 
had  come  into  the  land  with  great  dreams  and  a 
pocketful  of  cash;  but  with  the  cash  the  dreams 
vanished,  and  to  earn  his  passage  back  to  the  States 
he  had  accepted  a  clerical  position  with  the  broker 
age  firm  of  Holbrook  and  Mason.  Across  the  street 
from  the  office  of  Holbrook  and  Mason  was  the  heap 
of  cabin-logs  upon  which  Imber  sat.  Dickensen 
looked  out  of  the  window  at  him  before  he  went  to 

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The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


lunch;  and  when  he  came  back  from  lunch  he  looked 
out  of  the  window,  and  the  old  Siwash  was  still 
there. 

Dickensen  continued  to  look  out  of  the  window, 
and  he,  too,  forever  afterward  prided  himself  upon 
his  swiftness  of  discernment.  He  was  a  romantic 
little  chap,  and  he  likened  the  immobile  old  heathen 
to  the  genius  of  the  Siwash  race,  gazing  calm-eyed 
upon  the  hosts  of  the  invading  Saxon.  The  hours 
swept  along,  but  Imber  did  not  vary  his  posture,  did 
not  by  a  hair's-breadth  move  a  muscle;  and  Dick 
ensen  remembered  the  man  who  once  sat  upright  on 
a  sled  in  the  main  street  where  men  passed  to  and 
fro.  They  thought  the  man  was  resting,  but  later, 
when  they  touched  him,  they  found  him  stiff  and 
cold,  frozen  to  death  in  the  midst  of  the  busy  street. 
To  undouble  him,  that  he  might  fit  into  a  coffin, 
they  had  been  forced  to  lug  him  to  a  fire  and  thaw 
him  out  a  bit.  Dickensen  shivered  at  the  recollection. 

Later  on,  Dickensen  went  out  on  the  sidewalk  to 
smoke  a  cigar  and  cool  off;  and  a  little  later  Emily 
Travis  happened  along.  Emily  Travis  was  dainty 
and  delicate  and  rare,  and  whether  in  London  or 
Klondike,  she  gowned  herself  as  befitted  the  daughter 
of  a  millionaire  mining  engineer.  Little  Dickensen 
deposited  his  cigar  on  an  outside  window  ledge 
where  he  could  find  it  again,  and  lifted  his  hat. 

They  chatted  for  ten  minutes  or  so,  when  Emily 
Travis,  glancing  past  Dickensen's  shoulder,  gave  a 
startled  little  scream.  Dickensen  turned  about  to 
see,  and  was  startled,  too.  Imber  had  crossed  the 
street  and  was  standing  there,  a  gaunt  and  hungry- 
looking  shadow,  his  gaze  riveted  upon  the  girl. 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  Little  Dickensen  demanded, 
tremulously  plucky. 

Imber  grunted  and  stalked  up  to  Emily  Travis. 
He  looked  her  over,  keenly  and  carefully,  every 
square  inch  of  her.  Especially  did  he  appear  inter 
ested  in  her  silky  brown  hair,  and  in  the  color  of  her 
cheek,  faintly  sprayed  and  soft,  like  the  downy  bloom 
of  a  butterfly  wing.  He  walked  around  her,  sur 
veying  her  with  the  calculating  eye  of  a  man  who 
studies  the  lines  upon  which  a  horse  or  a  boat  is 
builded.  In  the  course  of  his  circuit  the  pink  shell 
of  her  ear  came  between  his  eye  and  the  westering 
sun,  and  he  stopped  to  contemplate  its  rosy  trans 
parency.  Then  he  returned  to  her  face  and  looked 
long  and  intently  into  her  blue  eyes.  He  grunted 
and  laid  a  hand  on  her  arm  midway  between  the 
shoulder  and  elbow.  With  his  other  hand  he  lifted 
her  forearm  and  doubled  it  back.  Disgust  and 
wonder  showed  in  his  face,  and  he  dropped  her  arm 
with  a  contemptuous  grunt.  Then  he  muttered  a 
few  guttural  syllables,  turned  his  back  upon  her,  and 
addressed  himself  to  Dickensen. 

Dickensen  could  not  understand  his  speech,  and 
Emily  Travis  laughed.  Imber  turned  from  one  to 
the  other,  frowning,  but  both  shook  their  heads. 
He  was  about  to  go  away,  when  she  called  out: 

"Oh,  Jimmy!    Come  here!" 

Jimmy  came  from  the  other  side  of  the  street. 
He  was  a  big,  hulking  Indian  clad  in  approved 
white-man  style,  with  an  Eldorado  king's  sombrero 
on  his  head.  He  talked  with  Imber,  haltingly,  with 
throaty  spasms.  Jimmy  was  a  Sitkan,  possessed  of  no 
more  than  a  passing  knowledge  of  the  interior  dialects. 

144 


The  League  of  the  Old  Men 

^-*»»  >-^s '•"•*    >***•*-  ^>^  «••» 


"Him  Whitefish  man,"  he  said  to  Emily  Travis. 
"Me  savve  um  talk  no  very  much.  Him  want  to 
look  see  chief  white  man." 

"The  Governor,"  suggested  Dickensen. 

Jimmy  talked  some  more  with  the  Whitefish  man, 
and  his  face  went  grave  and  puzzled. 

"I  t'ink  um  want  Cap'n  Alexander,"  he  explained. 
"Him  say  um  kill  white  man,  white  woman,  white 
boy,  plenty  kill  um  white  people.  Him  want  to  die." 

"Insane,  I  guess,"  said  Dickensen. 

"What  you  call  dat?"  queried  Jimmy. 

Dickensen  thrust  a  finger  figuratively  inside  his 
head  and  imparted  a  rotary  motion  thereto. 

"Mebbe  so,  mebbe  so,"  said  Jimmy,  returning  to 
Imber,  who  still  demanded  the  chief  man  of  the 
white  men. 

A  mounted  policeman  (unmounted  for  Klondike 
service)  joined  the  group  and  heard  Imber's  wish 
repeated.  He  was  a  stalwart  young  fellow,  broad- 
shouldered,  deep-chested,  legs  cleanly  built  and 
stretched  wide  apart,  and  tall  though  Imber  was,  he 
towered  above  him  by  half  a  head.  His  eyes  were 
cool,  and  gray,  and  steady,  and  he  carried  himself 
with  the  peculiar  confidence  of  power  that  is  bred 
of  blood  and  tradition.  His  splendid  masculinity 
was  emphasized  by  his  excessive  boyishness, — he 
was  a  mere  lad, — and  his  smooth  cheek  promised  a 
blush  as  willingly  as  the  cheek  of  a  maid. 

Imber  was  drawn  to  him  at  once.  The  fire  leaped 
into  his  eyes  at  sight  of  a  sabre  slash  that  scarred 
his  cheek.  He  ran  a  withered  hand  down  the  young 
fellow's  leg  and  caressed  the  swelling  thew.  He 
smote  the  broad  chest  with  his  knuckles,  and  pressed 

145 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


and  prodded  the  thick  muscle-pads  that  covered  the 
shoulders  like  a  cuirass.  The  group  had  been  added  to 
by  curious  passers-by — husky  miners,  mountaineers, 
and  frontiersmen,  sons  of  the  long-legged  and  broad- 
shouldered  generations.  Imber  glanced  from  one  to 
another,  then  he  spoke  aloud  in  the  Whitefish  tongue. 

"What  did  he  say?"  asked  Dickensen. 

"Him  say  um  all  the  same  one  man,  dat  p'lice- 
man,"  Jimmy  interpreted. 

Little  Dickensen  was  little,  and  what  of  Miss 
Travis,  he  felt  sorry  for  having  asked  the  question. 

The  policeman  was  sorry  for  him  and  stepped 
into  the  breach.  "I  fancy  there  may  be  something 
in  his  story.  I'll  take  him  up  to  the  captain  for 
examination.  Tell  him  to  come  along  with  me, 
Jimmy." 

Jimmy  indulged  in  more  throaty  spasms,  and 
Imber  grunted  and  looked  satisfied. 

"But  ask  him  what  he  said,  Jimmy,  and  what  he 
meant  when  he  took  hold  of  my  arm." 

So  spoke  Emily  Travis,  and  Jimmy  put  the  ques 
tion  and  received  the  answer. 

"Him  say  you  no  afraid,"  said  Jimmy. 

Emily  Travis  looked  pleased. 

"Him  say  you  no  skookum,  no  strong,  all  the  same 
very  soft  like  little  baby.  Him  break  you,  in  um 
two  hands,  to  little  pieces.  Him  t'ink  much  funny, 
very  strange,  how  you  can  be  mother  of  men  so  big, 
so  strong,  like  dat  p'liceman." 

Emily  Travers  kept  her  eyes  up  and  unfaltering, 
but  her  cheeks  were  sprayed  with  scarlet.  Little 
Dickensen  blushed  and  was  quite  embarrassed.  The 
policeman's  face  blazed  with  his  boy's  blood. 

146 


The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


"Come  along,  you,"  he  said  gruffly,  setting  his 
shoulder  to  the  crowd  and  forcing  a  way. 

Thus  it  was  that  Imber  found  his  way  to  the  Bar 
racks,  where  he  made  full  and  voluntary  confession, 
and  from  the  precincls  of  which  he  never  emerged. 

Imber  looked  very  tired.  The  fatigue  of  hope 
lessness  and  age  was  in  his  face.  His  shoulders 
drooped  depressingly,  and  his  eyes  were  lack-luster. 
His  mop  of  hair  should  have  been  white,  but  sun- 
and  weather-beat  had  burned  and  bitten  it  so  that 
it  hung  limp  and  lifeless  and  colorless.  He  took 
no  interest  in  what  went  on  around  him.  The 
court- room  was  jammed  with  the  men  of  the  creeks 
and  trails,  and  there  was  an  ominous  note  in  the 
rumble  and  grumble  of  their  low-pitched  voices, 
which  came  to  his  ears  like  the  growl  of  the  sea  from 
deep  caverns. 

He  sat  close  by  a  window,  and  his  apathetic  eyes 
rested  now  and  again  on  the  dreary  scene  without. 
The  sky  was  overcast,  and  a  gray  drizzle  was  fall 
ing.  It  was  flood-time  on  the  Yukon.  The  ice  was 
gone,  and  the  river  was  up  in  the  town.  Back  and 
forth  on  the  main  street,  in  canoes  and  poling-boats, 
passed  the  people  that  never  rested.  Often  he  saw 
these  boats  turn  aside  from  the  street  and  enter  the 
flooded  square  that  marked  the  Barracks'  parade- 
ground.  Sometimes  they  disappeared  beneath  him, 
and  he  heard  them  jar  against  the  house-logs  and 
their  occupants  scramble  in  through  the  window. 
After  that  came  the  slush  of  water  against  men's 
legs  as  they  waded  across  the  lower  room  and 
mounted  the  stairs.  Then  they  appeared  in  the 

147 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


doorway,  with  doffed  hats  and  dripping  sea-boots, 
and  added  themselves  to  the  waiting  crowd. 

And  while  they  centered  their  looks  on  him,  and 
in  grim  anticipation  enjoyed  the  penalty  he  was  to 
pay,  Imber  looked  at  them,  and  mused  on  their 
ways,  and  on  their  Law  that  never  slept,  but  went 
on  unceasing,  in  good  times  and  bad,  in  flood  and 
famine,  through  trouble  and  terror  and  death,  and 
which  would  go  on  unceasing,  it  seemed  to  him,  to 
the  end  of  time. 

A  man  rapped  sharply  on  a  table,  and  the  con 
versation  droned  away  into  silence.  Imber  looked  at 
the  man.  He  seemed  one  in  authority,  yet  Imber 
divined  the  square-browed  man  who  sat  by  a  desk 
farther  back  to  be  the  one  chief  over  them  all  and 
over  the  man  who  had  rapped.  Another  man  by 
the  same  table  uprose  and  began  to  read  aloud  from 
many  fine  sheets  of  paper.  At  the  top  of  each  sheet 
he  cleared  his  throat,  at  the  bottom  moistened  his 
fingers.  Imber  did  not  understand  his  speech,  but 
the  others  did,  and  he  knew  that  it  made  them 
angry.  Sometimes  it  made  them  very  angry,  and 
once  a  man  cursed  him,  in  single  syllables,  stinging 
and  tense,  till  a  man  at  the  table  rapped  him  to 
silence. 

For  an  interminable  period  the  man  read.  His 
monotonous,  sing-song  utterance  lured  Imber  to 
dreaming,  and  he  was  dreaming  deeply  when  the  man 
ceased.  A  voice  spoke  to  him  in  his  own  Whitefish 
tongue,  and  he  roused  up,  without  surprise,  to  look 
upon  the  face  of  his  sister's  son,  a  young  man  who 
had  wandered  away  years  agone  to  make  his  dwell 
ing  with  the  whites. 

148 


The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


"Thou  dost  not  remember  me,"  he  said  by  way 
of  greeting. 

"Nay,"  Imber  answered.  "Thou  art  Howkan 
who  went  away.  Thy  mother  be  dead." 

"She  was  an  old  woman,"  said  Howkan. 

But  Imber  did  not  hear,  and  Howkan,  with  hand 
upon  his  shoulder,  roused  him  again. 

"I  shall  speak  to  thee  what  the  man  has  spoken, 
which  is  the  tale  of  the  troubles  thou  hast  done  and 
which  thou  hast  told,  O  fool,  to  the  Captain  Alex 
ander.  And  thou  shalt  understand  and  say  if  it  be 
true  talk  or  talk  not  true.  It  is  so  commanded." 

Howkan  had  fallen  among  the  mission  folk  and 
been  taught  by  them  to  read  and  write.  In  his 
hands  he  held  the  many  fine  sheets  from  which  the 
man  had  read  aloud  and  which  had  been  taken 
down  by  a  clerk  when  Imber  first  made  confession, 
through  the  mouth  of  Jimmy,  to  Captain  Alexander. 
Howkan  began  to  read.  Imber  listened  for  a  space, 
when  a  wonderment  rose  up  in  his  face  and  he  broke 
in  abruptly. 

"That  be  my  talk,  Howkan.  Yet  from  thy  lips 
it  comes  when  thy  ears  have  not  heard." 

Howkan  smirked  with  self -appreciation.  His  hair 
was  parted  in  the  middle.  "Nay,  from  the  paper  it 
comes,  O  Imber.  Never  have  my  ears  heard.  From 
the  paper  it  comes,  through  my  eyes,  into  my  head, 
and  out  of  my  mouth  to  thee.  Thus  it  comes." 

"Thus  it  comes?  It  be  there  in  the  paper?" 
Imber's  voice  sank  in  whisperful  awe  as  he  crackled 
the  sheets  'twixt  thumb  and  finger  and  stared  at  the 
characlery  scrawled  thereon.  "It  be  a  great  medi 
cine,  Howkan,  and  thou  art  a  worker  of  wonders." 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"It  be  nothing,  it  be  nothing,"  the  young  man 
responded  carelessly  and  pridefully.  He  read  at 
hazard  from  the  document:  "In  that  year,  before 
the  break  of  the  ice,  came  an  old  man,  and  a  boy  who 
was  lame  of  one  foot.  These  also  did  I  kill,  and  the 
old  man  made  much  noise — — 

"  It  be  true,"  Imber  interrupted  breathlessly.  "  He 
made  much  noise  and  would  not  die  for  a  long  time. 
But  how  dost  thou  know,  Howkan  ?  The  chief  man 
of  the  white  men  told  thee,  mayhap?  No  one  be 
held  me,  and  him  alone  have  I  told." 

Howkan  shook  his  head  with  impatience.  "Have 
I  not  told  thee  it  be  there  in  the  paper,  O  fool?" 

Imber  stared  hard  at  the  ink-scrawled  surface. 
"As  the  hunter  looks  upon  the  snow  and  says,  Here 
but  yesterday  there  passed  a  rabbit;  and  here  by  the 
willow  scrub  it  stood  and  listened,  and  heard,  and 
was  afraid;  and  here  it  turned  upon  its  trail;  and 
here  it  went  with  great  swiftness,  leaping  wide; 
and  here,  with  greater  swiftness  and  wider  leapings, 
came  a  lynx;  and  here,  where  the  claws  cut  deep 
into  the  snow,  the  lynx  made  a  very  great  leap; 
and  here  it  struck,  with  the  rabbit  under  and  rolling 
belly  up;  and  here  leads  off  the  trail  of  the  lynx 
alone,  and  there  is  no  more  rabbit, — as  the  hunter 
looks  upon  the  markings  of  the  snow  and  says  thus 
and  so  and  here,  dost  thou,  too,  look  upon  the  paper 
and  say  thus  and  so  and  here  be  the  things  old 
Imber  hath  done?" 

"Even  so,"  said  Howkan.  "And  now  do  thou 
listen,  and  keep  thy  woman's  tongue  between  thy 
teeth  till  thou  art  called  upon  for  speech." 

Thereafter,   and  for  a  long  time,   Howkan  read 

150 


The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


to  him  the  confession,  and  Imber  remained  musing 
and  silent.  At  the  end,  he  said: 

"It  be  my  talk,  and  true  talk,  but  I  am  grown 
old,  Howkan,  and  forgotten  things  come  back  to  me 
which  were  well  for  the  head  man  there  to  know. 
First,  there  was  the  man  who  came  over  the  Ice 
Mountains,  with  cunning  traps  made  of  iron,  who 
sought  the  beaver  of  the  Whitefish.  Him  I  slew. 
And  there  were  three  men  seeking  gold  on  the  White- 
fish  long  ago.  Them  also  I  slew,  and  left  them  to 
the  wolverines.  And  at  the  Five  Fingers  there  was 
a  man  with  a  raft  and  much  meat." 

At  the  moments  when  Imber  paused  to  remember, 
Howkan  translated  and  a  clerk  reduced  to  writing. 
The  court-room  listened  stolidly  to  each  unadorned 
little  tragedy,  till  Imber  told  of  a  red-haired  man 
whose  eyes  were  crossed  and  whom  he  had  killed 
with  a  remarkably  long  shot. 

"Hell,"  said  a  man  in  the  forefront  of  the  on 
lookers.  He  said  it  soulfully  and  sorrowfully.  He 
was  red-haired.  "Hell'/'  he  repeated.  "That  was 
my  brother  Bill."  And  at  regular  intervals  through 
out  the  session,  his  solemn  "Hell"  was  heard  in  the 
court-room;  nor  did  his  comrades  check  him,  nor 
did  the  man  at  the  table  rap  him  to  order. 

Imber's  head  drooped  once  more,  and  his  eyes 
went  dull,  as  though  a  film  rose  up  and  covered  them 
from  the  world.  And  he  dreamed  as  only  age  can 
dream  upon  the  colossal  futility  of  youth. 

Later,  Howkan  roused  him  again,  saying:  "Stand 
up,  O  Imber.  It  be  commanded  that  thou  tellest 
why  you  did  these  troubles,  and  slew  these  people, 
and  at  the  end  journeyed  here  seeking  the  Law." 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


Imber  rose  feebly  to  his  feet  and  swayed  back  and 
forth.  He  began  to  speak  in  a  low  and  faintly 
rumbling  voice,  but  Howkan  interrupted  him. 

"This  old  man,  he  is  damn  crazy,"  he  said  in 
English  to  the  square-browed  man.  "His  talk  is 
foolish  and  like  that  of  a  child." 

"We  will  hear  his  talk  which  is  like  that  of  a 
child,"  said  the  square-browed  man.  "And  we  will 
hear  it,  word  for  word,  as  he  speaks  it.  Do  you 
understand?" 

Howkan  understood,  and  Imber's  eyes  flashed, 
for  he  had  witnessed  the  play  between  his  sister's 
son  and  the  man  in  authority.  And  then  began  the 
story,  the  epic  of  a  bronze  patriot  which  might 
well  itself  be  wrought  into  bronze  for  the  genera 
tions  unborn.  The  crowd  fell  strangely  silent,  and 
the  square-browed  judge  leaned  head  on  hand  and 
pondered  his  soul  and  the  soul  of  his  race.  Only 
was  heard  the  deep  tones  of  Imber,  rhythmically 
alternating  with  the  shrill  voice  of  the  interpreter, 
and  now  and  again,  like  the  bell  of  the  Lord,  the 
wondering  and  meditative  "Hell"  of  the  red-haired 
man. 

"I  am  Imber  of  the  Whitefish  people."  So  ran 
the  interpretation  of  Howkan,  whose  inherent  bar 
barism  gripped  hold  of  him,  and  who  lost  his  mission 
culture  and  veneered  civilization  as  he  caught  the 
savage  ring  and  rhythm  of  old  Imber's  tale.  "My 
father  was  Otsbaok,  a  strong  man.  The  land  was 
warm  with  sunshine  and  gladness  when  I  was  a  boy. 
The  people  did  not  hunger  after  strange  things,  nor 
hearken  to  new  voices,  and  the  ways  of  their  fathers 
were  their  ways.  The  women  found  favor  in  the  eyes 

152 


The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


of  the  young  men,  and  the  young  men  looked  upon 
them  with  content.  Babes  hung  at  the  breasts  of 
the  women,  and  they  were  heavy-hipped  with  in 
crease  of  the  tribe.  Men  were  men  in  those  days. 
In  peace  and  plenty,  and  in  war  and  famine,  they 
were  men. 

"At  that  time  there  was  more  fish  in  the  water 
than  now,  and  more  meat  in  the  forest.  Our  dogs 
were  wolves,  warm  with  thick  hides  and  hard  to  the 
frost  and  storm.  And  as  with  our  dogs,  so  with  us, 
for  we  were  likewise  hard  to  the  frost  and  storm. 
And  when  the  Pellys  came  into  our  land  we  slew 
them  and  were  slain.  For  we  were  men,  we  White- 
fish,  and  our  fathers  and  our  fathers'  fathers  had 
fought  against  the  Pellys  and  determined  the  bounds 
of  the  land. 

"As  I  say,  with  our  dogs,  so  with  us.  And  one 
day  came  the  first  white  man.  He  dragged  him 
self,  so,  on  hand  and  knee,  in  the  snow.  And  his 
skin  was  stretched  tight,  and  his  bones  were  sharp 
beneath.  Never  was  such  a  man,  we  thought,  and 
we  wondered  of  what  strange  tribe  he  was,  and  of  its 
land.  And  he  was  weak,  most  weak,  like  a  little 
child,  so  that  we  gave  him  a  place  by  the  fire,  and 
warm  furs  to  lie  upon,  and  we  gave  him  food  as  little 
children  are  given  food. 

"And  with  him  was  a  dog,  large  as  three  of  our 
dogs,  and  very  weak.  The  hair  of  this  dog  was 
short,  and  not  warm,  and  the  tail  was  frozen  so  that 
the  end  fell  off.  And  this  strange  dog  we  fed,  and 
bedded  by  the  fire,  and  fought  from  it  our  dogs, 
which  else  would  have  killed  him.  And  what  of 
the  moose  meat  and  the  sun-dried  salmon,  the  man 

153 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


and  dog  took  strength  to  themselves;  and  what  of 
the  strength,  they  became  big  and  unafraid.  And 
the  man  spoke  loud  words  and  laughed  at  the  old 
men  and  young  men,  and  looked  boldly  upon  the 
maidens.  And  the  dog  fought  with  our  dogs,  and 
for  all  of  his  short  hair  and  softness  slew  three  of 
them  in  one  day. 

"When  we  asked  the  man  concerning  his  people, 
he  said,  'I  have  many  brothers,'  and  laughed  in 
a  way  that  was  not  good.  And  when  he  was  in  his 
full  strength  he  went  away,  and  with  him  went 
Noda,  daughter  to  the  chief.  First,  after  that,  was 
one  of  our  bitches  brought  to  pup.  And  never  was 
there  such  a  breed  of  dogs, — big-headed,  thick- 
jawed,  and  short-haired,  and  helpless.  Well  do  I 
remember  my  father,  Otsbaok,  a  strong  man.  His 
face  was  black  with  anger  at  such  helplessness, 
and  he  took  a  stone,  so,  and  so,  and  there  was  no 
more  helplessness.  And  two  summers  after  that 
came  Noda  back  to  us  with  a  man-child  in  the  hol 
low  of  her  arm. 

"And  that  was  the  beginning.  Came  a  second 
white  man,  with  short-haired  dogs,  which  he  left 
behind  him  when  he  went.  And  with  him  went 
six  of  our  strongest  dogs,  for  which,  in  trade,  he 
had  given  Koo-So-Tee,  my  mother's  brother,  a 
wonderful  pistol  that  fired  with  great  swiftness  six 
times.  And  Koo-So-Tee  was  very  big,  what  of 
the  pistol,  and  laughed  at  our  bows  and  arrows. 
'Woman's  things,'  he  called  them,  and  went  forth 
against  the  bald-face  grizzly,  with  the  pistol  in  his 
hand.  Now  it  be  known  that  it  is  not  good  to  hunt 
the  bald-face  with  a  pistol,  but  how  were  we  to  know  ? 

154 


Old  Men 


and  how  was  Koo-So-Tee  to  know?  So  he  went 
against  the  bald-face,  very  brave,  and  fired  the  pistol 
with  great  swiftness  six  times;  and  the  bald-face 
but  grunted  and  broke  in  his  breast  like  it  were  an 
egg,  and  like  honey  from  a  bee's  nest  dripped  the 
brains  of  Koo-So-Tee  upon  the  ground.  He  was  a 
good  hunter,  and  there  was  no  one  to  bring  meat  to 
his  squaw  and  children.  And  we  were  bitter,  and  we 
said,  '  That  which  for  the  white  men  is  well,  is  for  us  not 
well.'  And  this  be  true.  There  be  many  white  men 
and  fat,  but  their  ways  have  made  us  few  and  lean. 

"Came  the  third  white  man,  with  great  wealth  of 
all  manner  of  wonderful  foods  and  things.  And 
twenty  of  our  strongest  dogs  he  took  from  us  in 
trade.  Also,  what  of  presents  and  great  promises, 
ten  of  our  young  hunters  did  he  take  with  him  on  a 
journey  which  fared  no  man  knew  where.  It  is 
said  they  died  in  the  snow  of  the  Ice  Mountains 
where  man  has  never  been,  or  in  the  Hills  of  Silence 
which  are  beyond  the  edge  of  the  earth.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  dogs  and  young  hunters  were  seen  never 
again  by  the  Whitefish  people. 

"And  more  white  men  came  with  the  years,  and 
ever,  with  pay  and  presents,  they  led  the  young  men 
away  with  them.  And  sometimes  the  young  men 
came  back  with  strange  tales  of  dangers  and  toils 
in  the  lands  beyond  the  Pellys,  and  sometimes  they 
did  not  come  back.  And  we  said:  'If  they  be  un 
afraid  of  life,  these  white  men,  it  is  because  they 
have  many  lives;  but  we  be  few  by  the  Whitefish, 
and  the  young  men  shall  go  away  no  more.'  But 
the  young  men  did  go  away;  and  the  young  women 
went  also;  and  we  were  very  wroth. 

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The  Spinners'*  Book  of  Fiction 


"It  be  true,  we  ate  flour,  and  salt  pork,  and  drank 
tea  which  was  a  great  delight;  only,  when  we  could 
not  get  tea,  it  was  very  bad  and  we  became  short 
of  speech  and  quick  of  anger.  So  we  grew  to  hunger 
for  the  things  the  white  men  brought  in  trade.  Trade! 
trade!  all  the  time  was  it  trade!  One  winter  we  sold 
our  meat  for  clocks  that  would  not  go,  and  watches 
with  broken  guts,  and  files  worn  smooth,  and  pistols 
without  cartridges  and  worthless.  And  then  came 
famine,  and  we  were  without  meat,  and  two-score 
died  ere  the  break  of  spring. 

"Now  are  we  grown  weak,'  we  said;  'and  the 
Pellys  will  fall  upon  us,  and  our  bounds  be  over 
thrown.'  But  as  it  fared  with  us,  so  had  it  fared 
with  the  Pellys,  and  they  were  too  weak  to  come 
against  us. 

"My  father,  Otsbaok,  a  strong  man,  was  now 
old  and  very  wise.  And  he  spoke  to  the  chief,  say 
ing:  'Behold,  our  dogs  be  worthless.  No  longer  are 
they  thick-furred  and  strong,  and  they  die  in  the 
frost  and  harness.  Let  us  go  into  the  village  and 
kill  them,  saving  only  the  wolf  ones,  and  these  let  us 
tie  out  in  the  night  that  they  may  mate  with  the  wild 
wolves  of  the  forest.  Thus  shall  we  have  dogs  warm 
and  strong  again.' 

"And  his  word  was  barkened  to,  and  we  White- 
fish  became  known  for  our  dogs,  which  were  the 
best  in  the  land.  But  known  we  were  not  for  our 
selves.  The  best  of  our  young  men  and  women 
had  gone  away  with  the  white  men  to  wander  on 
trail  and  river  to  far  places.  And  the  young  women 
came  back  old  and  broken,  as  Noda  had  come,  or 
they  came  not  at  all.  And  the  young  men  came 

156 


The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


back  to  sit  by  our  fires  for  a  time,  full  of  ill  speech 
and  rough  ways,  drinking  evil  drinks  and  gambling 
through  long  nights  and  days,  with  a  great  unrest 
always  in  their  hearts,  till  the  call  of  the  white  men 
came  to  them  and  they  went  away  again  to  the  un 
known  places.  And  they  were  without  honor  and 
respect,  jeering  the  old-time  customs  and  laughing 
in  the  faces  of  chief  and  shamans. 

"As  I  say,  we  were  become  a  weak  breed,  we 
Whitefish.  We  sold  our  warm  skins  and  furs  for 
tobacco  and  whiskey  and  thin  cotton  things  that 
left  us  shivering  in  the  cold.  And  the  coughing 
sickness  came  upon  us,  and  men  and  women  coughed 
and  sweated  through  the  long  nights,  and  the  hunters 
on  trail  spat  blood  upon  the  snow.  And  now  one, 
and  now  another,  bled  swiftly  from  the  mouth  and 
died.  And  the  women  bore  few  children,  and  those 
they  bore  were  weak  and  given  to  sickness.  And 
other  sicknesses  came  to  us  from  the  white  men, 
the  like  of  which  we  had  never  known  and  could  not 
understand.  Smallpox,  likewise  measles,  have  I 
heard  these  sicknesses  named,  and  we  died  of  them 
as  die  the  salmon  in  the  still  eddies  when  in  the  fall 
their  eggs  are  spawned  and  there  is  no  longer  need 
for  them  to  live. 

"And  yet,  and  here  be  the  strangeness  of  it,  the 
white  men  come  as  the  breath  of  death;  all  their 
ways  lead  to  death,  their  nostrils  are  filled  with  it; 
and  yet  they  do  not  die.  Theirs  the  whiskey,  and 
tobacco,  and  short-haired  dogs;  theirs  the  many 
sicknesses,  the  smallpox  and  measles,  the  coughing 
and  mouth-bleeding;  theirs  the  white  skin,  and  soft 
ness  to  the  frost  and  storm;  and  theirs  the  pistols 

157 


qf  Fiction 


that  shoot  six  times  very  swift  and  are  worthless. 
And  yet  they  grow  fat  on  their  many  ills,  and  prosper, 
and  lay  a  heavy  hand  over  all  the  world  and  tread 
mightily  upon  its  peoples.  And  their  women,  too,  are 
soft  as  little  babes,  most  breakable  and  never  broken, 
the  mothers  of  men.  And  out  of  all  this  softness, 
and  sickness,  and  weakness,  come  strength,  and 
power,  and  authority.  They  be  gods,  or  devils,  as 
the  case  may  be.  I  do  not  know.  What  do  I  know, 
I,  old  Imber  of  the  Whitefish  ?  Only  do  I  know  that 
they  are  past  understanding,  these  white  men,  far- 
wanderers  and  fighters  over  the  earth  that  they  be. 

"As  I  say,  the  meat  in  the  forest  became  less  and 
less.  It  be  true,  the  white  man's  gun  is  most  excel 
lent  and  kills  a  long  way  off;  but  of  what  worth  the 
gun,  when  there  is  no  meat  to  kill?  When  I  was  a 
boy  on  the  Whitefish  there  was  moose  on  every  hill, 
and  each  year  came  the  caribou  uncountable.  But 
now  the  hunter  may  take  the  trail  ten  days  and  not 
one  moose  gladden  his  eyes,  while  the  caribou  un 
countable  come  no  more  at  all.  Small  worth  the 
gun,  I  say,  killing  a  long  way  off,  when  there  be  noth 
ing  to  kill. 

"And  I,  Imber,  pondered  upon  these  things, 
watching  the  while  the  Whitefish,  and  the  Pellys, 
and  all  the  tribes  of  the  land,  perishing  as  perished 
the  meat  of  the  forest.  Long  I  pondered.  I  talked 
with  the  shamans  and  the  old  men  who  were  wise. 
I  went  apart  that  the  sounds  of  the  village  might  not 
disturb  me,  and  I  ate  no  meat,  so  that  my  belly  should 
not  press  upon  me  and  make  me  slow  of  eye  and  ear. 
I  sat  long  and  sleepless  in  the  forest,  wide-eyed  for 
the  sign,  my  ears  patient  and  keen  for  the  word  that 

158 


"  ALL  THEIR  WAYS   LEAD  TO   DEATH." 
FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  MAYNARD  DIXON. 


not 


The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


was  to  come.  And  I  wandered  alone  in  the  black 
ness  of  night  to  the  river  bank,  where  was  wind- 
moaning  and  sobbing  of  water,  and  where  I  sought 
wisdom  from  the  ghosts  of  old  shamans  in  the  trees 
and  dead  and  gone. 

"And  in  the  end,  as  in  a  vision,  came  to  me  the 
short-haired  and  detestable  dogs,  and  the  way  seemed 
plain.  By  the  wisdom  of  Otsbaok,  my  father  and  a 
strong  man,  had  the  blood  of  our  own  wolf-dogs  been 
kept  clean,  wherefore  had  they  remained  warm  of 
hide  and  strong  in  the  harness.  So  I  returned  to  my 
village  and  made  oration  to  the  men.  'This  be  a 
tribe,  these  white  men,'  I  said.  'A  very  large  tribe, 
and  doubtless  there  is  no  longer  meat  in  their  land, 
and  they  are  come  among  us  to  make  a  new  land  for 
themselves.  But  they  weaken  us,  and  we  die.  They 
are  a  very  hungry  folk.  Already  has  our  meal 
gone  from  us,  and  it  were  well,  if  we  would  live, 
that  we  deal  by  them  as  we  have  dealt  by  their  dogs.' 

"And  further  oration  I  made,  counseling  fight. 
And  the  men  of  the  Whitefish  listened,  and  some 
said  one  thing,  and  some  another,  and  some  spoke 
of  other  and  worthless  things,  and  no  man  made 
brave  talk  of  deeds  and  war.  But  while  the  young 
men  were  weak  as  water  and  afraid,  I  watched 
that  the  old  men  sat  silent,  and  that  in  their  eyes 
fires  came  and  went.  And  later,  when  the  village 
slept  and  no  one  knew,  I  drew  the  old  men  away 
into  the  forest  and  made  more  talk.  And  now  we 
were  agreed,  and  we  remembered  the  good  young 
days,  and  the  free  land,  and  the  times  of  plenty, 
and  the  gladness  and  sunshine;  and  wTe  called  our 
selves  brothers,  and  swore  great  secrecy,  and  a 

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The  Spinners'* Book  of  Fiction 


mighty  oath  to  cleanse  the  land  of  the  evil  breed 
that  had  come  upon  it.  It  be  plain  we  were  fools, 
but  how  were  we  to  know,  we  old  men  of  the  White- 
fish? 

"And  to  hearten  the  others,  I  did  the  first  deed. 
I  kept  guard  upon  the  Yukon  till  the  first  canoe 
came  down.  In  it  were  two  white  men,  and  when  I 
stood  upright  upon  the  bank  and  raised  my  hand 
they  changed  their  course  and  drove  in  to  me.  And 
as  the  man  in  the  bow  lifted  his  head,  so,  that  he 
might  know  wherefore  I  wanted  him,  my  arrow  sang 
through  the  air  straight  to  his  throat,  and  he  knew. 
The  second  man,  who  held  paddle  in  the  stern,  had 
his  rifle  half  to  his  shoulder  when  the  first  of  my 
three  spear-casts  smote  him. 

"'These  be  the  first,'  I  said,  when  the  old  men 
had  gathered  to  me.  'Later  we  will  bind  together 
all  the  old  men  of  all  the  tribes,  and  after  that  the 
young  men  who  remain  strong,  and  the  work  will 
become  easy.' 

"And  then  the  two  dead  white  men  we  cast  into 
the  river.  And  of  the  canoe,  which  was  a  very  good 
canoe,  we  made  a  fire,  and  a  fire,  also,  of  the  things 
within  the  canoe.  But  first  we  looked  at  the  things, 
and  they  were  pouches  of  leather  which  we  cut  open 
with  our  knives.  And  inside  these  pouches  were 
many  papers,  like  that  from  which  thou  hast  read, 
O  Howkan,  with  markings  on  them  which  we  mar 
veled  at  and  could  not  understand.  Now,  I  am  be 
come  wise,  and  I  know  them  for  the  speech  of  men 
as  thou  hast  told  me." 

A  whisper  and  buzz  went  around  the  court-room 
when  Howkan  finished  interpreting  the  affair  of  the 

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The  League  of  the  Old  Men 


canoe,  and  one  man's  voice  spoke  up:  "That  was 
the  lost  '91  mail,  Peter  James  and  Delaney  bringing 
it  in  and  last  spoken  at  Le  Barge  by  Matthews  going 
out."  The  clerk  scratched  steadily  away,  and 
another  paragraph  was  added  to  the  history  of  the 
North. 

"There  be  little  more,"  Imber  went  on  slowly. 
"It  be  there  on  the  paper,  the  things  we  did.  We 
were  old  men,  and  we  did  not  understand.  Even 
I,  Imber,  do  not  now  understand.  Secretly  we  slew, 
and  continued  to  slay,  for  with  our  years  we  were 
crafty  and  we  had  learned  the  swiftness  of  going 
without  haste.  When  white  men  came  among  us 
with  black  looks  and  rough  words,  and  took  away 
six  of  the  young  men  with  irons  binding  them  help 
less,  we  knew  we  must  slay  wider  and  farther.  And 
one  by  one  we  old  men  departed  up  river  and  down 
to  the  unknown  lands.  It  was  a  brave  thing.  Old 
we  were,  and  unafraid,  but  the  fear  of  far  places  is  a 
terrible  fear  to  men  who  are  old. 

"So  we  slew,  without  haste,  and  craftily.  On  the 
Chilkoot  and  in  the  Delta  we  slew,  from  the  passes 
to  the  sea,  wherever  the  white  men  camped  or  broke 
their  trails.  It  be  true,  they  died,  but  it  was  with 
out  worth.  Ever  did  they  come  over  the  mountains, 
ever  did  they  grow  and  grow,  while  we,  being  old, 
became  less  and  less.  I  remember,  by  the  Caribou 
Crossing,  the  camp  of  a  white  man.  He  was  a  very 
little  white  man,  and  three  of  the  old  men  came  upon 
him  in  his  sleep.  And  the  next  day  I  came  upon  the 
four  of  them.  The  white  man  alone  still  breathed, 
and  there  was  breath  in  him  to  curse  me  once  and 
well  before  he  died. 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"And  so  it  went,  now  one  old  man,  and  now 
another.  Sometimes  the  \vord  reached  us  long  after 
of  how  they  died,  and  sometimes  it  did  not  reach  us. 
And  the  old  men  of  the  other  tribes  were  weak  and 
afraid,  and  would  not  join  with  us.  As  I  say,  one  by 
one,  till  I  alone  was  left.  I  am  Imber,  of  the  White- 
fish  people.  My  father  was  Otsbaok,  a  strong  man. 
There  are  no  Whitefish  now.  Of  the  old  men  I  am 
the  last.  The  young  men  and  young  women  are 
gone  away,  some  to  live  with  the  Pellys,  some  with 
the  Salmons,  and  more  with  the  white  men.  I  am 
very  old,  and  very  tired,  and  it  being  vain  fighting 
the  Law,  as  thou  sayest,  Howkan,  I  am  come  seek 
ing  the  Law." 

"O  Imber,  thou  art  indeed  a  fool,"  said  Howkan. 

But  Imber  was  dreaming.  The  square-browed 
judge  likewise  dreamed,  and  all  his  race  rose  up 
before  him  in  a  mighty  phantasmagoria — his  steel- 
shod,  mail-clad  race,  the  law-giver  and  world-maker 
among  the  families  of  men.  He  saw  it  dawn  red- 
flickering  across  the  dark  forests  and  sullen  seas;  he 
saw  it  blaze,  bloody  and  red,  to  full  and  triumphant 
noon;  and  down  the  shaded  slope  he  saw  the  blood- 
red  sands  dropping  into  night.  And  through  it  all 
he  observed  the  Law,  pitiless  and  potent,  ever  un 
swerving  and  ever  ordaining,  greater  than  the  motes 
of  men  who  fulfilled  it  or  were  crushed  by  it,  even 
as  it  was  greater  than  he,  his  heart  speaking  for 
softness. 


162 


DOWN  THE 

FLUME  WITH  THE 

SNEATH  PIANO 


BY 


BAILEY  MILLARD 


Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine 
by  permission 


DOWN  THE  FLUME  WITH  THE 
SNEATH  PIANO 

HAD  halted  at  Camp  Five  to  catch 
my  breath.  This  flying  down  a  Sier- 
ran  lumber-flume,  scurrying  through 
the  heady  air  like  another  Phaeton, 
was  too  full  of  thrills  to  be  taken  all 
in  one  gasp.  I  dropped  limply  into 
the  rawhide-bottomed  chair  under  the  awning  in 
front  of  the  big  board  shanty  which  was  on  stilts 
beside  the  airy  flume,  and  gazed  on  down  the  long, 
gleaming,  tragic,  watery  way  to  the  next  steep  slide. 
Then  I  looked  at  the  frail  little  flume-boat  which  had 
borne  Oram  Sheets  and  me  thus  far  on  our  haz 
ardous  journey  to  the  valley.  Perhaps  I  shivered 
a  bit  at  the  prospect  of  more  of  this  hair-raising  ad 
venture.  At  any  rate,  Oram,  the  intrepid  flume- 
herder,  laughed,  dug  his  picaroon  into  a  log,  and 
asked : 

"Sorry  yeh  come?  Wai,  it  does  git  onto  a  man's 
nerve  the  first  trip.  Strange  so  many  brash  ones 
like  you  wanter  try,  but  few  on  'em  ever  dast  git  in 
ag'in.  But  I've  be'n  down  so  often."  Then  he  peered 
about  the  cabin.  "Looks  like  none  o'  the  boys  was 
to  home.  Wish  they  was;  they  might  git  us  up  a 
little  dinner.  It's  jest  twelve." 

He  went   inside  the  open  door,  and  I  heard  him 

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TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


foraging  about,  the  shanty  echoing  hollowly  to  the 
clumping  of  his  big  boots.  By  and  by  his  nasal  note 
was  resumed: 

"Come  in,  pardner!  Here's  a  great  find:  a  big 
can  o'  green  gages  an'  a  hunk  o'  jerk  an'  a  lot  o' 
cold  biscuits." 

Inside,  with  my  legs  under  the  greasy,  coverless 
table,  I  chewed  the  jerk  like  one  who  was  determined 
to  give  his  jaws  the  benefit  of  strenuous  physical 
culture,  and  listened  while  Oram  rattled  on,  with  his 
mouth  full  of  the  sodden,  half-baked  biscuits. 

44  You  mightn't  think  it,"  said  he,  "but  three  years 
ago  this  here  was  the  most  scrumptious  camp  on 
the  hull  flume.  OP  man  Hemenway  lived  here  then 
with  his  daughter  Jess.  She  kep'  house  fer  him. 
Jess  was  a  great  gal.  Every  man  along  the  flume, 
from  Skyland  to  Mill  Flat,  was  in  love  with  her. 
Shape?  You  couldn't  beat  that  there  gal  for  figger 
if  yeh  was  to  round  up  every  actress  in  the  country. 
She  had  a  pair  o'  big  round  baby-blue  eyes,  an'  was 
as  pretty  as  any  o'  them  there  cigarette  piclers.  A 
little  on  the  strawbary-blonde,  but  not  too  much  red 
in  her  hair,  an'  yet  spunky  as  a  badger  when  yeh 
teased  her. 

"The  boys  down  this  way  didn't  have  much  show. 
It  looked  like  Jess  had  hit  it  off  with  Jud  Brusie,  a 
big,  husky,  clean-lookin'  chap  up  to  the  h'ist.  Jud 
used  ter  send  her  down  notes  stuck  in  sticks  wedged 
inter  the  clamps,  an'  he  used  ter  sneak  down  this 
way  on  Sundays  when  he'd  git  a  chanst.  She'd 
meet  him  up  to  the  Riffles  there  by  that  big  bunch  o' 
yaller  pines  we  passed.  He  didn't  dast  come  down 
here  nary  time  till  oP  man  Hemenway  he  got  laid  up 

166 


Down  the  Flume  with  the  Sneath  Piano 


with  a  busted  laig  from  slippin'  off  the  trestle  in  the 
snow.  That  there  was  Jud's  show  ter  git  in  his  fine 
work.  Used  ter  bring  down  deer-meat  for  the  oY 
man,  an'  sody-water  from  that  there  spoutin'  spring 
up  ter  Crazy  Canon;  an'  it  begun  to  look  like  Hemen- 
way'd  give  in  an'  let  him  have  her.  But  he  seemed 
to  hold  off. 

"The  boys  used  ter  nearly  josh  the  life  out  o'  Jud. 
One  fellow — his  name  was  PhilPettis — wasskunkin' 
mean  enough  to  read  a  note  Jud  sent  down  oncet 
an'  tell  about  it  roun'  Skyland;  but  that  was  the 
only  time  any  of  'em  ever  done  anything  like  that, 
fer  Jud  jest  laid  fer  Phil  an'  went  through  him  like 
a  buzz-saw  an'  chucked  him  inter  the  flume. 

"No,  it  didn't  kill  Phil,  but  he  got  tol'able  well 
used  up.  His  clothes  was  nearly  all  tore  off,  an'  his 
hands  got  some  bruised  where  he  caught  on  to  the 
aidges  before  he  got  a  holt  an'  lifted  himself  out  in  a 
still  place.  He'd  be'n  all  right  only  he  got  mixed  up 
with  a  string  o'  lumber  that  was  a-comin'  down,  an' 
so  he  had  to  go  to  the  hospital. 

"One  thing  about  Jess — she  was  a  singer  all  right. 
I  ain't  never  heer'd  ary  one  o'  them  there  the-a?/-ter 
gals  that  could  beat  her  singin'.  She  warbled  like  a 
lark  with  his  belly  full  o'  grub  worms.  It  was  wuth 
ridin'  a  clamp  from  here  to  Mill  Flat  to  hear  her  sing. 
She  had  a  couple  o'  hymn-books  an'  a  stack  o'  them 
coon  songs  the  newspapers  gives  away,  an'  I  tell  yeh, 
she'd  sing  them  there  songs  like  she'd  knowed 
'em  all  her  life.  Picked  out  the  tunes  some  ways 
on  a  little  string-thing  like  a  sawed-off  guitar. 
Sounds  like  muskeeters  hummin'  aroun'.  Yes,  a 
mandy-linn — that's  it.  But  that  there  mandy-linn 

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didn't  soot  her  a  little  bit.  She  was  crazy  ter  have 
a  planner.  I  heer'd  her  tell  her  paw,  who  was  aroun' 
ag'in  workin'  after  his  busted  laig  got  well,  she'd 
give  ten  years  o'  her  life  for  any  ol'  cheap  pianner  he 
could  skeer  up  fer  her. 

"'Wai,'  says  he,  'how  in  tunket  am  I  a-goin'  ter 
git  anything  like  that — thirty  miles  off  n  the  road, 
an'  nary  way  o'  freightin'  it  up  or  down  the  canon  to 
this  camp?' 

"'Couldn't  yeh  have  it  brung  up  to  Skyland  by 
the  stage  road,'  asts  she,  'an'  then  have  it  rafted 
down  the  flume?  Jest  a  little  one?'  she  asts  very 
earnest-like. 

"'Gee  whittaker!'  says  he,  laughin'  all  over. 
'You'll  be  a-wantin'  'em  to  send  yeh  down  a  parlor- 
keer  nex'.' 

"Then  she  gits  hot  in  the  collar  an'  cries  an'  takes 
on,  an'  Jud,  who  was  a-hangin'  aroun',  has  to  walk 
her  up  to  the  Riffles;  an'  he  must  'a'  comforted  her  a 
heap,  fer  she  comes  back  alone,  singin,'  'Nearer, my 
God,  to  Thee,'  like  a  angel. 

"The'  was  a  big  spill  up  to  the  Devil's  Gate, — one 
o'  them  places  back  there  where  the  flume  hangs  onto 
the  side  o'  the  cliff,  about  half  a  mile  above  the  bot 
tom  o'  the  gulch, — an'  Jud  Brusie  an'  all  hands  has 
to  work  there  three  days  an'  nights  ter  git  things 
straightened  out.  Jud  worked  so  derned  hard,  up 
all  night  an'  hangin'  on  ter  the  ropes  he  was  let  up 
an'  down  by  till  yeh'd  think  he  was  ready  to  drop, 
that  the  soop'rintendent  said  he'd  make  Jud  flume 
boss  when  he  got  back  from  Noo  York,  where  he  was 
a-goin'  fer  a  few  months.  The  soop'rintendent— 
that's  Mr.  Sneath — went  over  the  hull  flume  with 

168 


Jud  a  little  while  before  he  lit  out  for  the  East, 
p'intin'  things  out  ter  him  that  he  wanted  did  when  he 
got  back.  I  was  down  here  flume-herdin'  at  Five  when 
him  an'  Jud  come  along  in  a  dude-lookin'  flume-boat, 
rigged  out  in  great  style.  I  stopped  'em  back  there  a 
ways  with  my  picaroon,  when  they  sung  out,  an'  they 
walked  down  here  on  the  side  planks.  Jest  as  they  got 
near  the  camp  the  soop'rintendent  he  stopped  like 
he'd  struck  a  rotten  plank  an'  stared  at  the  house. 
'Who's  that  singin'?'  says  he. 

"'Miss  Hemenway,'  says  Jud,  proud-like. 

"She's  got  an  awful  sweet  voice,'  says  the  oF  man. 
'It  oughter  be  trained.  She  ought  to  go  to  a  hot 
house' — or  something  like  that.  'Conservatory?' 
Yes,  that's  it. 

"She's  mighty  anxious  to  1'arn,'  says  Jud.  'She 
wants  a  pianner  awful  bad.' 

"Does  she?'  says  the  soop'rintendent.  'She 
oughter  have  one.' 

"When  he  come  along  to  the  house  he  says  to  Jess, 
who  stuck  her  head  outer  the  door  an'  looked  kinder 
skeer'd-like,  says  he,  'I  wish  yeh'd  sing  a  few  songs 
fer  me.' 

"Wai,  yeh  could  see  wal  enough  that  Jess's  knees 
was  a-knockin'  together,  but  she  tunes  up  her  mandy- 
linn,  scratches  at  the  strings  with  a  little  chip,  an' 
gits  started  all  right  on  'Rock  o'  Ages,'  an'  gits  to 
goin'  along  kinder  quavery-like  fer  a  while,  an'  then 
she  busts  right  inter,  'He'r  dem  Bells,'  so  strong 
an'  high  an'  wild  that  it  takes  the  ol'  man  right  out 
o'  his  boots. 

"He  claps  his  hands  an'  yells,  'Hooray!  Give  us 
another!' 

169 


"Then  she  saws  along  on,  'Gather  at  the  River/ 
an'  chops  inter,  ( All  Coons  Looks  Alike  ter  Me, '  in  a 
way  to  stop  the  mill. 

"Her  paw  stan's  aroun'  all  the  while,  tickled  t' 
death  an'  smilin'  all  over. 

'Wai,'  says  the  soop'rintendent,  when  Jess  she 
stops  ter  git  her  wind,  'yer  all  right,  Miss  Hemenway. 
Yer  as  full  o'  music  as  a  wind-harp  in  a  tornado.' 
Then  he  says  to  her  paw  on  the  Q.  T.,  'If  yeh  was 
ter  let  that  gal  go  ter  the  city  an'  Tarn  some  o'  them 
high-toned  op'ry  songs,  yeh  wouldn't  have  to  be 
picaroonin'  lumber  strings  much  longer.' 

'Yes,'  says  Hemenway,  bloated  up  like  a  gobbler 
an'  lookin'  at  Jess  where  she  stan's  with  her  face  red 
an'  still  a-puffin'  for  breath;  'an'  she  thinks  she 
could  1'arn  right  here  if  she  only  had  a  pianner.' 

"She'd  oughter  have  one,'  says  Mr.  Sneath.     'I 

wish '  he    says,   an'   then  he  breaks  off   like  a 

busted  log-chain.     '  But  we  couldn't  git  it  down  here.' 

'"What's  that?'  asts  Hemenway. 

'We  got  a  pianner  up  to  our  place,  an'  Mrs. 
Sneath  won't  be  a-fingerin'  on  it  fer  five  months. 
She's  a-goin'  East  with  me.  If  we  could  only  git  it 
down  here  an'  back  all  right.  If  the'  's  only  a  road 
from  Skyland  down  here  or  from  Mill  Flat  up,  but 
the'  ain't,  so  the'  's  no  use  talkin'.  Couldn't  ship  it 
down  to  the  Flat  an'  up  on  mule-back,  or  nothin', 
either;  so  I  guess  it  can't  be  did.' 

'Why  not  send  it  down  the  flume?'  asts  Jess, 
timid-like.  I  could  see  she  was  jest  crazy  about 
gittin'  it. 

"'Oh,  the  flume  is  old,  an'  it's  rotten  in  places, 
an'  such  a  heavy  load  might  go  through.' 

170 


"'Why,  it  holds  up  the  grub-boat  all  right/  says 
Jess.  'Oh,  if  I  could  only  have  that  pianner  down 
here!  I  can  play  a  little  already,  an'  I'd  Tarn  a  lot. 
I'd  practise  eight  hours  a  day.' 

' '  How  about  gittin'  the  meals  ? '  asts  Hemenway. 
'Wai,  I'd  set  up,  then,  an'  pra6tise  all  night,' 
says  she. 

" '  I'm  afeard  that  'u'd  be  pretty  hard  on  yer  paw/ 
says  Mr.  Sneath,  smilin'.  'Wai,  Jud,  we  got  ter  be 
goin'.' 

"So  they  gits  inter  their  dude  boat,  an'  Jess  she 
skips  along  after  'em,  an'  jest  as  they's  about  to  ontie, 
she  yells  out  to  the  soop'rintendent : 

" '  Cain't  I  have  it  ?  Cain't  I  have  it  ?  Cain't  yeh 
send  it  down  the  flume?  Please  say  yeh  will.  I'll 
take  the  best  kind  o'  keer  of  it.  It  sha'n't  git  a  single 
scratch.' 

"Mr.  Sneath  he  looks  at  her  a  minute  kinder 
tender-like,  an'  I  knowed  them  big  eyes  o'  hern 
was  a-doin'  their  work.  Them  big  soft  baby  eyes 
would  'a'  drawed  sap  outer  a  dead  log. 

"'Wai/  says  he,  'we'll  see.  If  Mrs.  Sneath's 
willin'  I  guess  it'll  be  all  right.' 

'Thank  you,  thank  you,  thank  you!'  she  yells 
as  the  boat  flies  down  the  flume. 

"I  seed  Jud  blow  a  kiss  to  her,  an'  I  knowed  she 
was  happy  as  a  bird.  She  was  a-singin'  aroun'  the 
shanty  all  day,  an'  at  supper  she  done  nothin'  but 
talk,  talk,  talk  about  that  there  pianner. 

'Don't  be  so  awful  gay,  Miss  Hemenway/  says 
I,  for  I  was  afeard  she  might  be  disappointed.  '  Yeh 
ain't  got  it  yet.  Yeh  know,  Mr.  Sneath's  a'  awful 
busy  man,  an'  he  may  fergit  it/ 

171 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"Oh,  he  won't  fergit!  JucFll  poke  him  up  on  it,' 
says  she.  'An'  I  think  I'll  have  it  put  right  over 
there  in  that  corner.  No,  that's  on  the  flume  side, 
an'  it  might  draw  dampness  there.  Over  there  by 
the  winder's  the  place,  an'  plenty  o'  light,  too. 
Wonder  if  they'll  think  to  send  down  a  stool.' 

"I  had  to  skin  up  to  Skyland  nex'  day.  Jud  says 
the  soop'rintendent  has  to  light  out  quicker'n  he'd 
thought,  but  he  didn't  fergit  about  the  pianner.  Mis' 
Sneath  was  as  easy  as  greased  skids,  but  Mr.  Sneath 
he  didn't  know  exa6lly.  He  sends  the  pianner  over 
to  the  warehouse  there  'longside  the  flume  an'  has 
the  men  slap  together  a  stout  boat  to  run  her  down 
in;  but  at  the  las'  minute  he  backs  out.  He  was 
a-lookin'  at  the  pianner  standin'  there  in  the  ware 
house,  an'  he  says  to  Jud,  says  he: 

'That  there  pianner  has  be'n  in  our  family  ever 
sence  we  was  married.  Marthy  allus  sot  a  heap  o' 
store  by  that  pianner.  It  was  my  first  present  to 
her,  an'  I  know  she  thinks  a  hull  lot  of  it,  even  if 
she  don't  seem  ter  keer.  Trouble  is,  she  don't  know 
what  sendin'  it  down  the  flume  means.  Yeh  see,  it 
ain't  like  a  long  string  o'  lumber — weight's  all  in  one 
place,  an'  she  might  break  through.  This  flume 
ain't  what  it  was  thirteen  years  ago,  yeh  know.' 

"  Jud  he  argies  with  him,  'cos  he  knows  Jess's 
heart'll  be  broke  if  she  don't  git  the  pianner;  an' 
after  a  while  he  thinks  he's  got  it  all  fixed;  but  jest 
afore  Sneath  an'  his  wife  takes  the  stage  he  tela- 
phones  down  to  the  warehouse  to  let  the  pianner 
stay  there  till  he  comes  back.  Then  he  goes  away, 
an'  Jud  is  as  down  in  the  mouth  as  if  he'd  run  his 
fist  ag'in'  a  band-saw.  He  mopes  aroun'  all  day, 

172 


Down  the  Flume  with  the  Sneath  Piano 


an'  he's  afeard  to  tell  Jess;  but  as  I  was  a-goin'  back 
to  Five  that  night,  he  tells  me  to  break  it  to  her  gentle- 
like  an'  say  he'd  done  his  best.  Which  I  did.  Wai, 
that  gal  jest  howls  when  I  tells  her,  an'  sobs  an'  sobs 
an'  takes  on  like  a  baby  coyote  with  the  croup.  But 
her  dad  he  quiets  her  at  last. 

"  Jud  he  hardly  dasts  to  show  up  on  Sunday,  but 
when  he  does,  she  won't  look  at  him  fer  quite  a  while. 
Then  some  o'  that  strawbary-blonde  in  her  comes 
out  in  some  o'  the  dernedest  scoldin'  yeh  ever  heer'd. 

"It's  too  bad,  Jessie,'  says  he,  'but  it  ain't  my 
fault.  I  done  my  best.  He  backed  out  at  the  las' 
minute;  he  backed  out,  an'  I  couldn't  do  no  more 
than  if  a  tree  dropped  on  me.  He  backed  out.' 

"After  a  while  he  takes  her  off  up  the  flume  a  piece, 
an'  they  stays  there  a  long  time,  but  she  don't  seem 
satisfied  much  when  she  comes  back.  There  is  hell 
a-poppin'  there  for  about  three  days  over  that  there 
pianner,  an'  the  ol'  man  he  gits  so  sick  of  it  he  gives 
her  warnin'  he'll  light  out  if  she  don't  quit.  Wai,  she 
quiets  down  some  after  that,  but  she  makes  Jud  as 
mis' able  as  a  treed  coon  fer  over  a  week.  She  keeps 
a-tryin'  an'  a-tryin'  to  git  him  to  send  the  pianner 
down  anyway.  She  tells  him  she'll  send  it  back 
afore  the  Sneaths  gits  home. 

'' 'He  told  me  I  could  have  it;  he  promised  me,' 
says  she,  'he  promised  me,  an'  I'll  never  marry  you 
unless  you  send  it  down.  You  can  do  it;  you're  goin' 
to  be  boss,  an'  you  know  it  will  be  all  right.  I'll  see 
that  they  ain't  a  scratch  on  it;  an'  you  can  put  it  in 
the  warehouse,  an'  they'll  never  know  it's  be'n  away.' 

"An'  so  she  keeps  a-teasin'  an'  a-teasin',  till  finally 
Jud  he  gits  desperate. 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"Oram,'  says  he  to  me  one  day,  'Oram,  you're 
a  ol'  flume  man.  What  do  you  think  o'  runnin'  that 
planner  down  to  Five?' 

"I  shakes  my  head.  I  likes  the  boy,  an'  I  don't 
want  ter  see  him  take  sech  big  chances  o'  gittin'  inter 
trouble.  Somebody  might  tell  Sneath,  an'  then  it 
might  be  all  off  about  his  bein'  flume  boss.  Besides, 
nobody  had  never  run  no  pianner  down  no  flume 
before,  an'  yeh  couldn't  tell  what  might  happen. 

"'D'  yeh  think,  honest,  Oram,'  says  he,  'the  ol' 
flume's  likely  ter  give  way  anywheres  ? ' 

"'No,'  says  I;  'she's  strong  as  a  railroad-track.' 

"'Wai,  then,'  says  he,  'I'm  a-goin'  to  do  it.  You 
come  down  Sunday  an'  we'll  take  her  out  afore  any 
body's  out  o'  the  bunk-house.' 

"I  tries  to  argy  him  out  of  it,  but  he  won't  listen. 
So  Sunday,  about  five  in  the  mornin',  I  goes  up  to 
Skyland,  an'  we  slides  the  big  boat  inter  the  flume 
an'  gits  the  pianner  onto  the  rollers,  an'  't  ain't  much 
trouble  to  load  her  all  right;  fer,  yer  know,  them  big 
boats  has  flat  tops  like  decks,  an'  things  sets  up  on 
top  of  'em.  But  while  we  was  a-doin'  that  an'  the 
boat  is  hitched  tight  to  a  stanchion  'longside  o'  the 
flume,  the  water  backs  up  behind  so  high  that  it  looks 
as  though  the  pianner  is  a-goin'  ter  git  wet.  This 
skeers  Jud,  an'  he  seems  to  lose  his  head  someways. 

"'Hustle  up,  Oram!'  says  he,  very  nervous-like. 
'The  boat's  crowdin'  down  so  it  won't  let  any  water 
past.  Ontie  that  rope.' 

"I  takes  a  good  notice  o'  the  pianner,  an'  I  don't 
like  her  looks,  sittin'  up  there  so  high  on  that  little 
deck. 

"'We  oughter  tie  her  on  good  an'  tight,'  says  I. 

174 


"She's  a  upright,  yeh  see,  an'  she's  as  top-heavy 
as  a  pile-driver.  I  was  afeard  she'd  strike  a  low  limb 
or  somethin'  an'  git  smashed.  So  I  goes  to  settle  her 
a  bit  an'  lay  her  down  on  her  back  an'  tie  her  on;  but 
he  says  he  don't  know  about  that  layin'-down  busi 
ness,  an'  declares  she'll  ride  all  right.  He  speaks 
pretty  sharp,  too.  So  I  gits  a  little  huffy  an'  onties 
the  rope,  an'  we  starts. 

"Wai,  she  don't  go  very  fast  at  first,  'cos  she's 
heavy  an'  they  ain't  none  too  much  water  in  front; 
but  after  a  while  we  comes  to  the  Devil's  Slide,— 
you  remember  the  place, — an'  we  scoots  down  there 
like  the  mill-tails  o'  hell. 

"Gee-whiz!'  says  Jud.  *  She's  a-rockin'  like  a 
teeter.  I  hope  she'll  stay  on  all  right.'  He  was 
settin'  back  with  me,  behind  the  pianner,  an'  we 
both  tries  to  holt  on  to  her  an'  keep  her  stiddy,  but 
we  cain't  do  much  more'n  set  down  an'  cuss  haif  the 
time,  we're  so  afeard  we'll  git  throwed  out.  Wai, 
after  we  come  to  the  foot  of  the  slide,  we  breathes 
easy-like,  an'  Jud  he  says  it's  all  right,  for  that  there 
was  the  wust  place.  For  about  three  miles  the 
pianner  set  on  that  boat  as  stiddy  as  a  church,  an' 
from  there  on  down  to  Four  it  was  pretty  good  sailin'. 
Of  course  we  went  a  good  deal  faster  in  the  steep 
places  than  any  other  boat  ever  sent  down  the  flume, 
because  the  heft  o'  the  thing,  when  she  got  started, 
was  bound  to  make  her  fly,  water  or  no  water.  In 
a  good  many  places  we  run  ahead  o'  the  stream,  an' 
then  in  the  quiet  spots  the  water  would  catch  up  to 
us  an'  back  up  behind  us  an'  shove  us  along. 

"Between  Four  an'  Five  there's  a  place  we  used 
ter  call  Cape  Horn.  The  flume  is  bracketed  onto  a 

175 


qf Motion 


cliff,  yeh  know,  fer  about  a  mile,  an'  it's  a  skeery 
place  any  way  yeh  shoot  it;  yeh  scoot  aroun'  them 
there  sharp  curves  so  lively,  an'  yeh  look  down  there 
four  or  five  hundred  feet  inter  the  bottom  o'  the 
canon.  That's  where  yeh  shut  yer  eyes.  Yeh  re 
member?  Wai,  when  I  sees  Cape  Horn  ahead  I  gits 
a  little  skeer'd  when  I  thinks  how  she  might  rock. 
We  run  onto  a  place  where  I  could  look  away  ahead, 
an'  there,  wavin'  her  apron  or  somethin',  is  a  gal,  an' 
I  knows  it's  Jess,  out  from  Five  to  see  the  pianner 
come  down.  Jud  he  knows,  too,  an'  waves  back. 

"We  runs  out  onto  the  brackets,  turns  a  sharp 
curve,  an'  she  begins  to  wabble  an'  stagger  like  a 
drunken  man,  floppin'  back  an'  forth,  an'  the  strings 
an'  things  inside  is  a-hummin'  an'  a-drummin'. 

"Slow  her  down!'  yells  Jud.  'Slow  her  down,  or 
we'll  never  git  past  the  Horn!' 

"I  claps  on  the  brake,  but  she's  so  heavy  she  don't 
pay  no  'tention  to  it,  though  I  makes  smoke  'long 
them  planks,  I  tell  yer.  She  scoots  ahead  faster'n 
ever,  an'  bows  to  the  scenery,  this  way  an'  that,  like 
she  was  crazy,  an'  a-hummin'  harder  than  ever. 

"'Slow  her  down!  Ease  her  down!'  hollers  Jud, 
grittin'  his  teeth  an'  hoi  din'  onto  her  with  all  his 
hundred  an'  eighty  pounds  weight.  But  't  ain't  no 
good.  I  gits  a  holt  oncet,  but  the  water  backs  up 
behind  us  an'  we  goes  a-scootin'  down  on  a  big  wave 
that  sloshes  out  o'  the  flume  on  both  sides  an'  sends 
us  flyin'  toward  that  Horn  fer  further  orders. 

"When  we  gits  to  the  sharpest  curve  we  knows 
we're  there  all  right.  She  wabbles  on  one  side  an' 
then  on  the  other,  so  I  can  see  chunks  o'  sky  ahead 
right  under  her,  An'  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  she  gives 

176 


a  whoopin'  big  jump  right  off  the  top  o'  the  boat,  an' 
over  the  side  o'  the  flume  she  goes,  her  strings  all 
a-singin'  like  mad,  an'  sailin'  down  four  hundred 
feet.  Jud  had  a  holt  of  her  before  she  dropped,  an' 
if  I  hadn't  'a'  grabbed  him  he'd  'a'  gone  over,  too. 

"You  might  not  believe  it,  pardner,  but  we  run  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  down  that  there  flume  before  we 
hears  her  strike.  Jeroosalem!  What  a  crash!  I 
never  heer'd  one  o'  them  big  redwoods  that  made 
half  so  much  noise  when  she  dropped.  How  she  did 
roar!  An'  I  tell  yeh  what  was  strange  about  that 
there  noise:  it  seemed  like  all  the  music  that  every 
body  had  ever  expelled  to  play  on  that  pianner  for 
the  nex'  hundred  years  come  a-boomin'  out  all  to 
oncet  in  one  great  big  whoop-hurray  that  echered  up 
an'  down  that  canon  fer  half  an  hour. 

"'We've  lost  somethin','  says  I,  cheerful-like,  fer 
I  thinks  the'  's  no  use  cryin'  over  spilt  pianners. 

"But  Jud  he  never  says  nothin', — jest  sets  there 
like  he  was  froze  plumb  stiff  an'  couldn't  stir  a  eye 
lid—sets  there,  starin'  straight  ahead  down  the  flume. 
Looks  like  his  face  is  caught  in  the  air  and  held  that 
way. 

"  Of  course,  now  our  load's  gone,  the  brake  works 
all  right,  an'  I  hooks  a-holt  onto  the  side  about  a 
hundred  feet  from  where  Jess  stands  like  a  marble 
statute,  lookin'  down  inter  the  gulch. 

"Come  on,  Jud,'  says  I,  layin'  my  hand  onto  his 
arm  soft-like;  'we  gits  out  here.' 

"He  don't  say  nothin',  but  tries  to  shake  me  off. 
I  gits  him  out  at  last,  an'  we  goes  over  to  where  poor 
Jess  stands,  stiff  an'  starin'  down  inter  the  gulch. 
When  she  hears  our  feet  on  the  side  planks,  she 

177 


starts  up  an'  begins  to  beller  like  a  week-old  calf;  an' 
that  fetches  Jud  outer  his  trance  for  a  while,  an'  he 
puts  his  arm  aroun'  her  an'  he  helps  her  back  along 
the  walk  till  we  comes  to  a  place  where  we  gits  down 
an'  goes  over  to  view  the  wreck. 

"Great  snakes,  pardner,  but  it  was  a  sight!  The 
pianner  had  flew  down  an'  lit  onto  a  big,  flat  rock, 
an'  the'  wasn't  a  piece  of  her  left  as  big  as  that  there 
plate.  There  was  all  kinds  o'  wires  a-wrigglin'  aroun' 
on  the  ground  an'  a-shinin'  in  the  sun,  an'  the'  was 
white  keys  an'  black  keys  an'  the  greatest  lot  o'  them 
little  woolly  things  that  strikes  the  strings  all  mixed  up 
with  little  bits  o'  mahogany  an'  nuts  an'  bolts  an' 
little  scraps  o'  red  flannel  an'  leather,  an'  pegs  an' 
bits  o'  iron  that  didn't  look  as  if  it  had  ever  been  any 
part  o'  the  machine.  It  was  the  dernedest  mess!  I 
picked  up  somethin'  Jess  said  was  a  pedal, — a  little 
piece  o'  shiny  iron  about  as  long  as  that, — 'n'  that 
was  the  only  thing  that  seemed  to  have  any  shape 
left  to  it.  The  litter  didn't  make  any  pile  at  all — 
jest  a  lot  o'  siftin'  sawdust-stuff  scattered  aroun'  on 
the  rocks. 

"'She  struck  tol'able  hard,'  says  I,  lookin'  at  Jud. 
But  he  don't  say  nothin' ;  jest  stan's  over  there  on  the 
side  o'  the  rock  an'  looks  as  if  he'd  like  to  jump  off 
another  fifty  feet  the'  was  there. 

"'Don't  take  it  like  that,  Jud,'  says  Jess,  grabbin' 
holt  o'  him  an'  not  payin'  any  'tention  to  my  bein' 
there.  'Cry,  cuss,  swear — anything,  but  don't  be  so 
solemn-like.  It's  my  fault,  Juddie  dear — all  my 
fault.  Can  yeh  ever,  ever  fergive  me?  Yeh  said 
yeh  didn't  think  it  was  safe,  an'  I  kep'  a-goadin'  yeh 
to  it;  an'  now — — '  She  broke  out  a-blubberin'  an' 

178 


a-bellerin'  again,  an'  he  puts  his  arm  aroun'  her  an' 
smiles,  an'  says  soft-like: 

'"It  don't  matter  much.  I  can  raise  the  money 
an'  buy  a  new  one  fer  Mis'  Sneath.  How  much  do 
they  cost  ? '  says  he. 

"'Oh,  I  dunno!  Five  hundred  dollars,  I  think. 
It's  an  awful  lot  o'  money!' 

"'Wai,  I  got  three-fifty  saved  up, — you  know  what 
fer, — an'  I  can  raise  the  rest  an'  put  a  new  pianner 
in  the  place  o'  that  one,'  says  he. 

"He  looks  at  the  wreck,  an'  fer  the  first  time  I 
sees  his  eyes  is  jest  a  little  damp. 

"They  didn't  either  of  'em  seem  to  take  any  notice 
o'  me,  an'  I  didn't  feel  that  I  counted,  nohow. 

"An'  we  cain't  git  married,'  says  Jud,  sorrowful- 
like,  'fer  ever  so  long.  There'll  be  nothin'  to  house- 
keep  on  till  I  can  save  up  some  more.' 

'Yes,  we  can,  too,'  says  she.    'I  don't  keer  if  yeh 
ain't  got  so  much  as  a  piece  o'  bale-rope.' 

"'But  yer  paw?' 

"I  don't  keer,'  says  she,  very  hard-like,  a-stampin' 
her  foot.  'He  can  like  it  or  lump  it.' 

"Wai,  I  sneaks  away  an'  leaves  'em  there,  an'  by 
an'  by  they  comes  up  to  where  I  sets  on  top  o'  the 
boat,  an'  Jud  isn't  so  plumb  gloomy  as  I  thinks  he'd 
be. 

"Him  an'  her  goes  down  ter  Fresno  nex'  day  an' 
buys  one  o5  that  same  identical  make  o'  pianners  an' 
has  it  shipped  up  on  the  first  freight-wagon  to  Sky- 
land.  An'  they  puts  it  inter  the  warehouse,  an'  there 
she  stands  till  Mr.  Sneath  comes  home  with  his  wife. 

"When  Mis'  Sneath  she  sees  the  pianner  brung 
inter  her  house  she  don't  notice  any  difference  fer  a 

179 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


while;  but  one  day  she  sets  down  ter  play,  an'  she 
pounds  out  a  few  music,  an'  then  she  gives  a  jump 
an'  looks  all  over  the  machine  an'  she  says,  'Good 
Lord!'  An'  Sneath  he  comes  in,  an'  they  has  a  great 
time  over  how  the'  's  be'n  sech  a  change  in  that 
pianner.  She  finally  makes  up  her  mind  it's  a  bran'- 
new  one,  an'  sends  fer  Jud  an'  asts  him  what  he  knows 
about  it.  An'  he  cain't  lie  a  little  bit,  so  he  up  an' 
tells  her  that  her  pianner  is  all  inter  sawdust  an' 
scrap-iron  down  on  the  rocks,  an'  that  this  is  a  new 
one  that  he  owes  a  hundred  an'  fifty  dollars  on  down 
ter  Fresno. 

"Then  she  busts  out  a-laughin',  an'  says: 

"'Why,  that  old  tin-pan!  I'm  glad  it  flew  the 
flume.  It  wasn't  wuth  twenty  dollars.  I  got  a  noo 
grand  pianner  on  the  way  here  that  I  ordered  in  Noo 
York.  I'll  make  this  here  one  a  weddin'  present  to 
you  an'  Jess.' 

"And  the  soop'rintendent  he  writes  out  his  check 
an'  sends  it  down  to  Fresno  to  pay  off  the  hundred  an' 
fifty,  an'  when  the  weddin'  it  comes  off  he  gives  'em 
a  set  o'  chiny  dishes  besides. 

"Jud's  flume  boss  now,  an'  Jess  she  plays  that 
pianner  an'  sings  like  a  bird.  When  we  gits  down 
ter  Mill  Flat  I'll  show  yeh  their  house.  It's  a  white 
one  up  on  the  side  o'  the  hill,  jest  across  the  gulch 
from  the  mill. 

"Wai,  yeh  had  all  the  grub  yeh  want,  pardner? 
Say,  ain't  them  green  gages  sour?  They  sets  yer 
teeth  on  aidge  all  right.  An'  I  couldn't  find  the  boys' 
sugar-can.  If  yer  full  up,  I  guess  we'd  better  git 
inter  the  boat." 

I  took  my  seat  behind  Oram  and  a  particularly 

180 


Down  the  Flume  with  the  Sneath  Piano 


offensive  pipe  he  had  just  lighted.  Looking  down 
the  long,  swift-running,  threatening  flume,  I  shud 
dered;  for  since  Gram's  recital  the  native  hue  of  my 
resolution  had  been  "sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast 
of  thought."  I  remarked  that  if  he  saw  any  of  those 
Cape  Horn  curves  ahead  to  let  me  know  and  I  would 
get  out  and  walk. 

"Don't  yeh  be  skeer'd  by  what  I  told  yeh,"  said 
he.  'Yeh  got  a  pretty  fair-sized  head,  but  yeh  ain't 
quite  so  top-heavy  as  Mis'  Sneath's  big  upright.  An', 
besides,  the'  ain't  no  more  Cape  Horn  on  this  flume; 
they  calls  that  place  Planner  P'int  now." 


181 


THE  CONTUMACY  OF 
SARAH  L.WALKER 


BY 


MIRIAM  MICHELSON 


Reprinted  from  Munsey's  Magazine  of  April,  1904 
by  permission 


THE  CONTUMACY  OF 
SARAH  L.  WALKER 

HE  BOARD  will  now  pass  to  consider 
ation  of  the  case  of  Mrs. — Mrs. 
Walker." 

The  president  looked  from  the  re 
port  in  front  of  her  to  the  superin 
tendent  sitting  opposite. 
The  Rev.  Alexander  McCaleb  rose  slowly  to  his 
feet. 

"I  regret  exceedingly,"  he  said,  "to  have  to  report 
this  case  to  the  board.  I  need  not  say  that  if  it  had 
been  possible  to  convince  Mrs.  Walker  of  the  error  of 
her  ways,  no  pains  or  time  would  have  been  spared. 
But  I  have  done  all  that  I  could.  Mrs.  Walker  per 
sists.  She — ah ! — she  flouts  all  authority,  and — ah  !— 
sets  such  an  example  of  rebellious  conduct  that  I 
fear  the  discipline  of  the  home  may  be  gravely  com 
promised." 

The  president  knitted  her  pretty,  dark  brows.  Her 
hair  was  white,  with  a  soft,  youthful  whiteness  that 
haloed  her  head  as  if  it  was  a  joke  of  old  Time's. 
She  was  new  to  her  office,  and  was  conscious  of  a 
critical  atmosphere  that  subtly  underlined  the  formal 
ity  of  the  proceedings — an  official  formality  that 
made  the  meeting  of  the  lady  managers  of  this  Old 
People's  Home  a  formidable  affair. 

185 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"I  see  no  record  of  any  case  of  disciplining  here 
tofore,"  she  said,  troubled.  "There  is  no  precedent 
by  which  the  chair  can  be " 

"But  there  are  the  by-laws,"  suggested  the  super 
intendent.  He  reached  over  to  his  own  desk,  and 
read  from  a  pamphlet  that  had  lain  open  there:  "If 
any  inmate  of  the  home  shall  persistently  and  will 
fully  disobey  the  rules,  the  superintendent  shall  re 
port  such  case  to  the  board  of  managers.  If,  after 
full  and  complete  investigation,  and  a  notice  to  that 
effecT:  having  been  duly  served,  said  inmate  shall 
continue  to  persist  in  contumacy,  the  board  is  by  a 
majority  vote  empowered  to  expel." 

A  little  hush  fell  upon  the  assemblage  at  this  in 
vocation  of  its  dread  powers. 

"It  seems  rather  hard  on  the  old  bodies,  doesn't 
it?"  the  president  was  encouraged  to  remark. 

"But  it  is  plainly  stated  in  the  by-laws,"  said  the 
recording  secretary,  a  bright-eyed,  business-like  ma 
tron. 

"  And  dear  Mr.  McCaleb  is  so  patient  and  tactful 
that  it  is  seldom  necessary,"  remarked  the  single 
member  of  this  week's  visiting  committee. 

"I  thank  you,  Mrs.  Davis."  The  superintendent 
bowed  in  his  stateliest  manner.  "I  do  my  best — 1 
try  always  to  do  my  best.  Old  people  are  trying,  we 
all  know." 

The  president  looked  up  from  her  perusal  of  the 
by-laws. 

"  Suppose  we  have  the  old  lady  in,"  she  said.  "  Mr. 
McCaleb,  will  you  send  for  Mrs.  Walker?" 

The  old  lady  held  her  head  haughtily  as  she  walked 
into  the  handsomely  furnished  office.  The  president, 

186 


frff 


mindful  of  her  official  capacity,  looked  severely  upon 
Mrs.  Walker — Sarah  Lucinda  Walker,  according  to 
the  cramped  signature  of  the  home's  register,  widow, 
a  native  of  Maine,  aged  sixty-seven  on  her  entrance 
into  the  home  five  years  ago.  And  Mrs.  Walker — a 
miracle  of  aged  neatness,  trim,  straight,  little,  in  her 
sober  black  and  immaculate  cap — looked  severely 
back. 

"Be  seated,  Mrs.  Walker,"  said  the  president. 

"Thank  you."  Mrs.  Walker  crossed  with  a 
formal  "Good  morning,  ladies,"  and  took  the  chair 
indicated. 

"Now,  Mr.  McCaleb,  if  you  please "  said  the 

president. 

The  superintendent  rose. 

"Ladies,"  he  began  with  a  solemnity  that  made 
the  offender  quake  within,  though  outwardly  she 
was  calm  as  the  president  herself,  "it  is  with  positive 
pain  that  I  have  to  report  to  you  the  case  of  Mrs. 
Sarah  Lucinda  Walker.  It  is  now  fully  three  months 
since  I  began  to  labor  with  her — three  months  since 
I  warned  her  of  this  very  thing  that  has  come  to  pass, 
an  investigation  by  your  honorable  board.  On  the 
9th  of  January"  —he  glanced  methodically  at  a  note 
book — "I  sent  her  a  copy  of  the  by-laws,  with  the 
section  referring  to  insubordination  underscored  in 
red  ink.  On  the  23d  I  made  a  personal  call  upon  her, 
and  sought  to  convince  her  how  impossible  it  was  that 
such  conduct  could  be  tolerated.  On  February  7th  I 
publicly  reprimanded  her.  On  the  13th — five  days 
ago — I  informed  her  that,  after  considering  it  prayer 
fully,  I  had  laid  the  matter  before  your  honorable 
body,  and  that  she  should  hold  herself  in  readiness 

187 


The  Spinners  Book  of  Fiction 


to  be  summoned  before  you  to  meet  the  following 
charges : 

"First,  insubordination;  second,  breaking  Rule 
VIII  of  the  house  regulations;  third,  taking  food 
from  the  table;  fourth,  disturbing  neighbors  in  early 
morning;  and  fifth,  defacing  the  building." 

Mr.  McCaleb  took  his  seat.  The  shocked  gaze  of 
the  board  bent  itself  upon  the  criminal.  The  bad 
little  old  lady's  far-sighted  eyes  swept  insolently  past 
them  all  and  met  the  president's — twenty  years 
younger  than  her  own. 

"Do  you  like  birds,  ma'am?"  she  asked,  herself 
in  an  eager,  bird-like  way.  And  then,  without  wait 
ing  for  an  answer,  she  went  on:  "I  love  'em — any 
thing  that's  got  wings.  Old  Cap'n  Walker  used  to 
say,  '  Sary  Lucindy,  they  was  a  moughty  fine  ornith 
ologist  spiled  when  God  A'mighty  made  you  a  woman 
'stead  of  a  man.'  He  was  a  free-spoken  man,  Cap'n 
Walker,  not  so  pious-mouthed  as  some,  but  he  had 
charity  in  his  soul,  which  is  more  than  some  others 
has." 

She  swept  a  superbly  disdainful  look  toward  the 
Rev.  McCaleb.  The  recording  secretary  tapped  re 
provingly  with  her  pencil,  but  the  president  only 
listened. 

"Now,  ma'am,  we  ain't  paupers,  we  old  folks. 
Every  one  of  us,  as  you  know,  has  paid  our  thousand 
dollars  in.  An'  we  ain't  bad  children  as  needs  dis- 
ciplinin';  an'  they's  no  use  treatin'  grandmothers  an' 
great-grandmothers  as  though  they  was.  It's  in  me 
to  love  birds,  an'  no  'mount  of  rules  and  regulations 
is  goin'  to  change  me.  My  canary  bird  died  the  same 
year  Cap'n  Walker  saved  every  other  soul  on  board 

188 


The  Contumacy  of  Sarah  L.  Walker 


his  ship  and  went  down  alone  to  the  bottom  with  her. 
Since  then  I've  sort  o'  adopted  the  sparrers.  Why, 
haven't  I  spent  every  afternoon  through  the  summer 
out  in  the  park  a-feedin'  them  my  lunch?  An'  now 
that  winter's  come,  d'ye  think  I'd  have  the  face  to 
desert  them  ? 

"'Not  one  of  them  is  forgotten  before  God' — do 
you  remember,  ma'am?  One  of  'em  seemed  to  be 
in  the  early  winter.  It  was  before  my  rheumatism 
got  so  bad.  I  was  out  in  the  park  the  afternoon  the 
first  snow  fell,  an'  this  poor  little  crittur  with  a  wing 
broke  kep'  a  trailin'  an'  chirpin'  an'  scuttlin'  in  front 
o'  me.  It'd  fell  out  o'  the  nest;  hardly  covered  with 
feathers,  it  was.  I  picked  it  up  an'  carried  it  to  my 
room  in  my  apron.  Poor  little  mite — how  it  fluttered 
an'  struggled!  I  kep'  it  overnight  in  my  spool-box. 
In  the  mornin'  I  fed  it;  by  noon  the  sun  come  out, 
an'  I  let  it  out  on  the  window-sill,  where  I  keep  my 
house  plants;  just  a  bit  o'  musk — the  cap'n  liked 
musk — an'  a  pot  o'  bergamot.  Do  you  know,  ma'am, 
that  little  thing  was  that  contented  by  the  end  of  the 
week  that  I  could  leave  the  windows  open  an'  nary 
a  wing's  stroke  away  would  it  go?  That  was  in 
December,  'fore  it  got  to  be  known  that  I  kep'  a 
bird  in  my  room.  That  mild  spell  we  had  'fore 
Christmas  it  did  fly  away  one  morning,  but  at  sun 
down  there  it  was  back  again;  an'  when  it  came  on 
to  snow  that  night  I  felt  same's  I  used  to  'tween 
voyages,  when  I  could  hear  how  the  ocean'd  get 
lashed  to  a  fury,  an'  Cap'n  Walker'd  be  fast  asleep 
safe  beside  me. 

"Of  course  it  was  a  pity  that  when  the  bird  came 
back  it  showed  others  the  way — but  wasn't  it  cute  of 

189 


TSpinnersookof  Fiction 


it,  ma'am  ?  An'  wasn't  it  just  like  a  lot  o'  children 
hangin'  'round  at  maple-syrup  time  ?  They  did  make 
a  clatter  an'  a  racket  in  the  early  mornin'  when  I 
wouldn't  be  up  an'  they'd  be  ready  for  breakfast. 
But  wasn't  it  for  all  the  world  like  children  with 
empty  little  stummicks  an'  chatterin'  tongues  ?  When 
Mis'  Pearson  complained  of  me  an'  the  noise,  I 
didn't  take  it  kind  of  her.  Take  food  from  the  table  ? 
Course  I  did.  But  it  was  my  own  lunch,  that  I'd  a 
right  to  go  hungry  for  ef  I  wanted  to,  an'  nobody's  affair. 
"But  I  tell  you,  ma'am,  one  day — it  was  that  day 
Mr.  McCaleb  sent  me  that  printed  notice,  an'  every 
body  on  my  floor  see  it  comin'  an'  knew  it  was  some 
thing  shameful  an'  legal — that  evening  I  tried  hon 
estly  to  keep  'em  out.  I  pulled  down  the  shade — it 
was  a  bitter  cold  day,  a  regular  blizzard  blowing — 
an'  I  sat  with  my  back  to  the  window  an'  tried  to 
read  my  Bible  while  them  birds  jest  shrieked  them 
selves  hoarse  outside.  Well,  guess  where  that  Bible 
opened  to!  'Yea,  the  sparrow  hath  found  a  house 
and  the  swallow  a  nest  for  herself  where  she  may 
lay  her  young.'  That  was  a  message,  ma'am,  a 
straight,  sure  message.  I  opened  the  window  an' 
scattered  their  bread-crumbs  out  on  the  sill,  which 
I  had  made  jest  the  least  bit  wider  for  them — that's 
what  he  calls  'defacin'  the  buildin'.'  After  that,  I 
told  Mr.  McCaleb  flat-footed  that  if  he  had  the 
heart  to  starve  them  innocent  critturs  in  the  dead  o' 
winter,  it  was  more  than  I  had.  I  told  him  if  he'd 
wait  till  spring,  I'd  promise  never  to  open  the  window 
that  faces  south  after  that;  but  till  they  could  shift 
for  themselves,  I'd  shift  for  them.  That's  all.  Thank 
you,  ma'am,  for  letting  me  have  my  say." 

190 


\ut 


She  smiled  into  the  president's  soft  eyes,  and  rose, 
looking  like  a  trim,  saucy,  gray-haired  sparrow  about 
to  take  flight.  The  president's  smile  started  back  to 
her,  but  on  the  way  it  had  to  pass  the  recording 
secretary,  the  visiting  committee,  and  the  Rev. 
Alexander  McCaleb.  By  the  time  it  had  made  the 
journey  it  was  shorn  of  half  its  sympathetic  under 
standing. 

"You  admit  then,  Mrs.  Walker,  that  you  have 
broken  the  rule  against  having  pets  in  the  room?" 
the  president  asked  with  gravity.  "It  is  a  necessary 
rule.  Fancy  what  would  be  the  condition  of  the 
place  if  a  lady  in  No.  117  had  a  tame  sparrow,  a 
gentleman  in  No.  120  a  monkey,  his  neighbor  a 
spaniel,  the  lady  across  the  way  a  cat,  and  so  on!  I 
appreciate — we  all  do,  and  Mr.  McCaleb  more  than 
all  of  us — how  tender  and  charitable  a  nature  yours 
is,  but"  —she  looked  at  the  recording  secretary  to 
gain  courage — "but  we  simply  must  enforce  the 
rules.  I  know  so  good  a  housekeeper  as  you  must 
have  been  will  understand  this,  and  agree  with  me 
when  I  say  that  such  a  disciplinarian  as  Captain 
Walker  no  doubt  was — unfortunately,  I  never  had 
the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance — would  have  been 
the  first  to  counsel  you  to  obey  the  rules.  Won't  you 
think  it  over  from  our  point  of  view,  Mrs.  Walker, 
when  you  go  back  to  your  room  ?  Do!  Good  after 


noon." 


It  was  a  very  dejecled  Sarah  Lucinda  Walker  that 
returned  to  her  room.  Her  depression  was  noted 
and  audibly  commented  upon  by  Mrs.  Pearson,  her 
next-door  neighbor  and  arch-enemy.  In  fa6l,  the 
whole  corridor  was  alive  with  the  news  of  her  defeat. 

191 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


At  the  lunch-table  it  was  the  sole  topic  of  conversa 
tion,  and  in  the  library  old  Colonel  Rockwell — in  the 
pauses  of  a  quavering  rendition  of  "Rocked  in  the 
Cradle  of  the  Deep"  —bet  Mr.  Patterson  three  of  the 
cigars  his  nephew  always  sent  him  on  Fridays  that 
Mrs.  Walker,  being  a  woman  of  spirit,  would  not 
yield  even  though  the  ultimatum  were  expulsion. 

Mrs.  Walker  heard  of  the  wager,  of  course,  that 
afternoon.  They  were  a  hundred  or  more  antiquated 
and  unseaworthy  vessels,  all  anchored  in  a  semi- 
genteel  haven;  and  from  morning  till  night,  till  sun 
should  cease  for  them  to  shine  and  water  to  flow, 
they  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  listen  to  the  whispering 
tide  that  told  of  the  great  ocean  of  life  beyond,  or  to 
gossip  among  themselves  of  their  own  voyages  dead 
and  done. 

The  incorrigible  Mrs.  Walker's  spotless  little  room, 
with  its  bag  of  dried  crusts  on  the  windows-sill,  saved 
for  her  pet,  became  the  storm  center  that  afternoon. 
Every  old  lady  who  could  possibly  claim  acquaint 
ance  called  to  inquire  her  intentions;  every  old  gen 
tleman  leaned  hard  upon  his  cane  as  he  lifted  his 
hat  to  her  in  the  halls  with  the  deference  due  a  gal 
lant  rebel.  They  loved  a  rebel,  these  old  children, 
at  the  end  of  their  lives  fallen  again  into  the  domain 
of  "you  must"  and  "you  must  not." 

Sarah  Lucinda  Walker's  world  rocked  beneath  her. 
She  intended,  she  believed,  to  obey  the  rules,  to  cast 
off  the  one  creature  on  earth  to  which  she  could  still 
play  Lady  Bountiful;  to  shut  her  hospitable  window 
and  her  loving  old  heart  on  all  these  fluttering,  visit 
ing  strangers  who  had  heard  of  her  generosity,  and 
with  every  hour  carried  the  news  of  it  further. 

192 


Walker 


She  intended  all  this,  but  when  the  time  came  she 
did  simply  as  old  Colonel  Rockwell  had  wagered  she 
would.  She  opened  wide  her  windows  and  fed  the 
hungry  throng  that  whirred  about  her,  scattering 
crumbs  and  floating  feathers  over  the  immaculate 
marble  of  Mr.  McCaleb's  front  door-step. 

A  knock  at  the  door  brought  her  to  her  senses. 
She  put  a  withered  little  old  hand,  very  like  a  spar 
row's  claw,  upon  the  window-sash  to  shut  it  hastily, 
and  then,  too  proud  to  deceive,  turned  boldly  to  meet 
her  fate. 

Mrs.  Pearson,  on  the  lookout  at  her  half-open 
door,  saw  the  official-looking  document  handed  to 
her. 

"It's  her  notice  to  leave,"  she  said  in  an  awed 
whisper  to  herself. 

In  the  face  of  so  great  a  calamity  she  felt,  not 
triumph,  but  a  shocked  sense  of  loss,  of  self-reproach. 
Five  minutes  after  she  was  in  her  enemy's  room. 

"You  mustn't — you  mustn't  cry,  dear  Mrs.  Walk 
er,"  she  sobbed,  putting  her  arms  about  the  slender 
old  shoulders. 

"Am  I  crying?"  the  little  old  lady  answered.  "I 
can't  help  it — I'm  so  happy!" 

"Happy!"  Mrs.  Pearson's  dazed  old  eyes  turned 
bewildered  from  the  envelope  with  the  home's  letter 
head  on  it  to  the  bird-like  creature  in  her  arms. 
"And  you've  got  your  notice  to  leave?" 

"  Did  you  think  it  was  that  ?  So  did  I  for  a  minute, 
an'  it  'most  killed  me.  But  I  opened  it,  an'  found  a 
note  from  the  president — that  dear,  dear  president! 
She  wants  to  know  if  I'll  take  care  of  her  summer 
cottage  till  the  spring  comes.  An',  Marthy  Pearson, 

193 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


they's  chickens  up  there — fancy  breeds — a  whole 
yard  of  'em — an'  I'm  to  have  the  feedin'  of  'em! 
Ain't  it  enough  to  make  a  body  cry  for  joy?  Say, 
Marthy,  would  you — would  you  mind  feedin'  the 
sparrers? — only  on  the  very  stormiest  days — McCaleb 
would  never  suspect  you,  an'  spring's  near!" 


194 


BREAKING  THROUGH 


BY 

W.  C.  MORROW 


Reprinted  from  Success  Magazine  of  September,  1906 
by  permission 


BREAKING  THROUGH 

AY,"  SAID  his  mother,  whom  he  shyly 
and  secretly  worshipped,  without  her 
ever  suspecting  the  least  of  it  beneath 
his  cautious  reserve  and  occasional 
outbursts  of  temper,  "my  son,  I  hope 
you  will  remember,  tonight.  You  are 
nearly  a  man.' 

She  was  a  wise  woman,  and  said  it  kindly  and 
meant  it  well;  but  his  face  flamed,  his  eyes  hardened, 
and  he  sullenly  walked  away.  Mrs.  Gilbert  sighed, 
and  went  about  the  preparations  for  the  young  peo 
ple's  party  which  her  daughters,  aged  sixteen  and 
eighteen,  were  to  give  that  evening.  She  could  not 
foresee  what  her  son  would  do.  Would  her  gentle 
warning,  filled  with  the  tender  pride  of  a  mother's 
love  for  her  one  man-child,  drive  him  with  his  dog 
to  the  woods,  whither  many  a  time  before  this  day 
a  word  less  pointed  had  sent  him,  there  to  live  for  a 
week  or  longer  at  a  time,  in  a  manner  that  he  had 
never  disclosed? — or  would  the  disjointed  thing 
within  him  which  harried  his  somber,  lonely  life  force 
him  in  a  blind  moment  to  make  a  disgraceful  scene 
at  the  gathering?  She  prayed  that  neither  would 
happen,  and  that  the  sunshine  fighting  for  egress 
through  his  darkness  would  come  forth  soft  and  genial 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


and  very  fine  and  sweet,  as  it  did  sometimes,  and  al 
ways  unaccountably.  .  .  . 

The  worst  had  happened  at  the  party.  No  doubt 
it  was  intolerable, — but  not  so  bad  as  when  (he  was 
then  only  four)  he  had  tried  to  kill  a  boy  for  lying  about 
him  and  was  whipped  mercilessly  by  his  father, — 
for  here,  in  the  library,  he  was  sitting  before  Mr. 
Gilbert,  who  was  pale  and  whose  eyes  had  a  deep, 
inscrutable  look.  He  was  a  large  and  powerful  man, 
and  had  a  genial  nature,  with  force  and  sternness. 
The  lad  had  never  seen  him  looking  thus,  and  so 
evidently  guarding  a  prisoner,  and  the  boy  felt  a 
strange  weight  within. 

Whatever  had  happened  must  have  left  a  shadow 
on  the  assemblage,  for,  though  faint  sounds  came 
through  the  closed  doors,  they  were  somewhat  lack 
ing  in  the  robustness  of  youth.  Ray  did  not  deign 
an  effort  to  remember.  More  than  that,  he  hoped 
that  it  never  would  come  back,  for  it  might  be  dis 
turbing  to  his  solitudes.  Of  his  attempts  to  remem 
ber  the  attack  on  the  boy  ten  years  ago,  there  had 
never  come  any  result  but  the  recollection  of  a  wholly 
disconnected  event, — when  he  was  enveloped  in  a 
swirl  of  flame  and  smoke  from  a  fierce  grass  fire, 
and  had  to  fight  his  way  through  to  life.  He  did 
not  try  to  think  what  his  father's  purpose  was  in 
holding  him  a  prisoner  tonight.  Was  it  to  give  him 
a  lecture?  Pshaw!  The  beautiful,  peaceful  woods 
would  make  him  forget  that  child's-play,  and  he 
would  steal  away  to  them  with  Cap  this  very  night, 
as  soon  as  all  were  asleep. 

Thus,  motionless  and  in  silence,  sat  he  and  his 
father,  seemingly  through  an  endless,  aching  time, 

198 


Breaking  Through 


After  a  while  the  guests  quietly  left.  His  sisters 
omitted  their  customary  good  night  to  their  father. 
All  sounds  from  the  servants  ended.  Then  entered 
his  mother,  uncommonly  pale,  and  in  silence  looked 
from  her  son  to  her  husband.  She  was  small  and 
dainty,  and  very,  very  pretty,  the  boy  reflected.  It 
was  a  pity  that  her  bright  eyes  should  be  dim  tonight 
and  her  sweet  mouth  drawn.  She  looked  worn  and 
as  though  she  dreaded  something. 

"Are  you  ready?"  Mr.  Gilbert  asked,  regarding 
her  fixedly. 

Her  lip  trembled,  but  there  came  a  flash  from  her 
eyes.  "Do  you  really  mean  it?"  she  asked. 

"Certainly.    It  must  be  done." 

"My  dear,  dear,  he's  too  large  for— 

"He'll  never  be  too  large  for  it  so  long  as  he  is  a 
boor  and  coward,  insults  our  guests,  scandalizes  us 
all,  shames  his  sisters,  and  treats  his  parents  with 
open  scorn.  He  won't  try  to  be  like  other  people  and 
accept  his  world  as  he  finds  it.  His  inordinate  con 
ceit  is  a  disease.  It  is  eating  up  his  own  life  and  mak 
ing  our  lives  miserable.  We  will  cure  it." 

He  had  spoken  calmly,  but  with  a  low  vibration 
of  tone;  and  as  he  came  to  his  feet  he  looked  very  tall 
and  terrible.  Ray's  blood  began  to  rise,  and  as  he 
looked  about  for  something  undefined  he  felt  the 
heat  and  smelled  the  smoke  of  the  grass  fire  of  ten 
years  ago. 

He  knew  he  was  a  coward.  That  was  the  shame 
and  the  curse  of  his  life.  He  did  not  think  it  had  al 
ways  been  so,  but  believed  it  had  come  about  grad 
ually.  At  first  he  had  not  minded  the  whippings  that 
other  boys  gave  him  because  of  his  temper  and  his 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


physical  inadequacy,  for  he  had  invited  the  punish 
ment;  but  when  they  all  learned  that  his  righting 
spirit  had  weakened,  that  they  could  whip  him  easily, 
that  they  need  not  wait  for  provocation,  and  that  he 
would  never  tell,  they  bullied  and  hounded  and  beat 
him  until  he  had  come  to  know  a  craven,  sordid  fear, 
which  spread  from  the  boys  to  the  whole  terrible 
world  in  which  the  masculine  entity  must  fight  for  a 
place. 

"I  am  ready,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  trying  to  hide  a 
sigh. 

"Come,"  Mr.  Gilbert  ordered  the  boy,  looking  at 
him  for  the  first  time  in  two  hours. 

The  boy  quailed  before  that  look,  the  most  dread 
ful  thing  he  had  ever  seen.  It  made  him  numb  and 
sick,  and  when  he  rose  he  staggered;  for,  though  tall, 
he  was  slender  and  had  little  strength.  The  weight 
on  his  chest  became  a  pain  and  fixed  on  his  throat, 
to  choke  and  torment  him. 

His  mother  had  gone  out.  He  followed  his  father, 
and  the  three  went  out  into  the  back  yard,  the  boy 
bareheaded.  The  night  was  sharp  and  the  moon 
very  bright.  All  the  boy's  power  of  thought  was 
suspended. 

In  silence  they  walked  down  the  terraces  of  the 
park-like  yard  in  the  rear.  Cap,  Ray's  dog,  his  only 
intimate,  came  bounding  forward  for  his  young  mas 
ter's  unfailing  good  night,  but  Mr.  Gilbert  angrily 
ordered  him  away.  The  animal,  astonished  and  hurt, 
slunk  away,  keeping  a  watchful  view  of  the  group, 
and  sat  down  at  a  distance  and  gazed  in  wonder. 
They  passed  through  a  gate  into  an  orchard,  and  shut 
the  dog  out. 

200 


Breaking  Through 


Mr.  Gilbert  selected  an  apple  tree,  because  the 
wood  was  tougher  than  that  of  a  peach.  From  it  he 
cut  two  switches  a  yard  long,  and  carefully  pared  the 
knots,  his  wife  observing  without  a  word  or  a  move 
ment,  and  the  boy  looking  away  into  the  distance. 
When  Mr.  Gilbert  had  done,  he  ordered  his  son  to 
prepare. 

The  lad  numbly,  dumbly  removed  his  coat  and 
waistcoat,  slipped  his  suspenders  down,  tightened  the 
strap  at  the  back  of  his  trousers,  clasped  his  hands 
in  front,  and  bowed  his  head.  The  dog,  which  had 
crept  to  the  fence  and  was  peering  through  the 
pickets,  whined  anxiously  and  was  quivering.  When 
roughly  ordered  away  by  Mr.  Gilbert,  he  went  upon 
a  terrace  that  overlooked  the  fence,  and  trembled  as 
he  watched.  The  boy  did  not  once  look  toward  him. 
He  was  struggling  with  the  pain  in  his  throat. 

Mr.  Gilbert  offered  one  of  the  switches  to  his  wife. 

"Oh,  how  can  you!"  she  pleaded. 

'You  must,"  he  firmly  said.  "I'll  relieve  you 
when  you  are  tired." 

The  boy's  mind  suddenly  cleared,  and  he  com 
prehended.  A  whipping  from  his  father  would  be 
frightful  enough, — not  for  the  blows;  they  were  noth 
ing.  The  plan  was  not  alone  to  humiliate  him  be 
yond  all  measure,  but  to  scourge  his  soul,  ravage  the 
sanctuary  of  his  mother  there,  rend  him  asunder, 
and  cast  him  into  an  unthinkable  hell  of  isolation; 
for  she  was  the  bond  that  held  him  to  the  world,  she 
was  the  human  comfort  and  sweetness  of  his  life. 

Since  his  tenth  year  his  discipline  had  been  solely 
in  her  hands,  his  father  having  given  him  up  as  worth 
less,  hopeless.  She  had  whipped  him  many  a  time, 

201 


but  not  for  two  years;  and  he  had  felt  no  pain,  no 
shame,  no  outrage,  no  resentment.  The  case  of  the 
teacher  was  different.  Ray  had  solemnly  sworn,  re 
newing  the  oath  every  day,  that  when  he  came  to  man 
hood  he  would  beat  his  teacher  to  death  for  whipping 
him  so  often  and  severely  because  of  his  dulness,  his 
apathy,  or  his  rebellion;  the  whippings  from  his 
mother  had  only  increased  his  tenderness  for  her, 
and,  in  some  way  that  he  could  not  understand,  his 
pity  also.  Perhaps  it  was  because  he  vaguely  felt 
that  she  was  impairing  something  in  herself  that  was 
precious  to  him.  Never  had  she  conquered  him; 
never  had  he  cried  out  in  pain,  never  pleaded  for 
mercy,  never  confessed  penitence  nor  promised 
reform. 

Mrs.  Gilbert  shut  her  teeth  hard,  and,  deathly 
white  in  the  moonlight,  raised  the  switch.  It  was 
poised  a  moment,  and  then  her  arm  fell  limp  to  her 
side ;  but  the  look  that  her  son  had  seen  in  his  father's 
eyes  held  her  and  steeled  her  with  a  sort  of  desperate 
madness,  and  her  arm  again  rose. 

A  long  cry,  an  anguished  wail,  almost  superhuman 
in  its  power  to  shatter  the  silence  of  the  night,  and 
more  startling  than  any  human  cry  could  be,  struck 
disorganizingly  through  the  drama.  It  may  have 
hastened  the  catastrophe.  Mr.  Gilbert  was  unnerved 
for  a  moment,  and  in  exasperation  picked  up  a  clod 
and  threw  it  at  the  offending  dog  trembling  on  the 
terrace.  When  he  turned  again,  his  son  was  kneeling 
beside  his  unconscious  mother,  peering  anxiously  into 
her  pallid  face,  and  calling  her  softly. 

In  a  stride  Mr.  Gilbert  was  upon  him.  A  hand 
armed  with  strength  and  fury  caught  up  the  shirt  on 

202 


V 


Breaking  Through 


the  lad's  shoulder,  raised  him,  and  flung  him  away 
with  so  great  violence  that  the  slender  body  struck 
the  ground  as  a  log.  Mr.  Gilbert  tenderly  picked  up 
his  wife  and  bore  her  into  the  house. 

The  fall  had  half  stunned  the  boy.  As  he  slowly 
struggled  to  a  sitting  posture  the  moon  danced  fan 
tastically,  and  some  black  trees  crowning  a  near  hill 
bowed  and  rose,  and  walked  side  wise  to  and  fro. 
A  whine,  low,  cautious,  packed  with  sympathy  and 
solicitude,  pleaded  at  the  pickets,  but  the  boy  gave 
it  no  attention.  He  sat  for  a  time,  rose  giddily, 
swayed  as  he  dressed  himself,  and  with  deliberation 
walked  to  the  gate.  The  dog,  whining,  trembling, 
crawled  to  meet  him;  but  the  boy,  instead  of  caress 
ing  him,  ordered  him  quietly  but  firmly  to  the  kennel. 
Obedience  was  slow,  and  the  animal  looked  up  in 
credulous,  wondering.  The  order  had  to  be  re 
peated.  Finally  the  dog  obeyed,  frequently  pausing 
to  look  back,  but  his  master  stood  inflexible. 

Passing  round  the  house,  and  without  thinking 
or  caring  about  hat  and  overcoat,  he  noiselessly  passed 
out  the  front  gate,  for  a  moment  studied  the  big 
house  that  had  cradled  him,  bred  much  of  his  anguish, 
and  held  all  of  his  love,  and  firmly  stepped  out  into 
the  road.  There  was  a  gnawing  ache  somewhere. 
Assuredly  that  one  blow, — and  from  her, — could  not 
have  caused  it.  After  finding  it  in  his  throat,  he  was 
much  relieved,  and  struck  out  on  secure  legs. 

It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  he  was  an  outlaw  and 
outcast.  He  did  not  think  at  all.  Hence  there  was 
no  plan  in  his  going.  He  did  not  even  understand 
that  something  deeper  within  him  than  had  ever 
operated  before  had  assumed,  in  the  disqualifica- 

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tion  of  his  ordinary  ruling  powers,  an  imperious 
regency,  and  that  it  was  infinitely  greater  or  in 
finitely  less  than  his  usual  intelligence.  He  simply 
went  on,  thinking  nothing,  remembering  nothing. 
The  beautiful  highway,  arched  by  great  trees,  above 
which  rode  the  moon  in  keeping  pace  with  him,  was  a 
tunnel  under  a  luminous  sea;  he  half  walked,  half 
floated,  in  the  crystal  water,  and  had  no  wonder  that 
he  breathed  it.  The  houses  along  the  way  were  the 
palaces  of  lordly  gnomes  that  inhabited  the  deep. 

Whatever  was  leading  him  turned  him  out  of  the 
avenue  at  last  and  drifted  him  along  a  winding  road 
that  was  as  beautiful  in  its  less  conventional  way.  He 
did  not  reflect  that  all  of  this  was  familiar,  shame 
fully  familiar.  It  was  the  road  to  his  grandmother's, 
but  he  had  not  visited  her  for  a  year. 

Her  great  wisdom  and  tacl;  had  gone  to  a  study 
of  the  strange,  unhappy  child;  she  had  been  kind  to 
him  in  every  cautious,  delicate  fashion  that  she  could 
devise;  but  he  had  ceased  coming,  and  avoided  her 
when  she  visited  his  home,  and  she  had  never  known 
why.  She  was  a  patient  woman  and  good;  she  knew 
prayer,  and  in  her  peaceful  twilight  she  walked  with 
God;  yet  no  revelation  had  come  at  her  appeals,  for 
the  times  were  not  ready;  and  the  boy  went  his  way 
alone  and  silent,  forever  alone  and  silent,  and  un 
happy,  unhappy! 

A  white  picket  fence  was  presently  marching  with 
him  alongside  the  shining  road.  He  did  not  con 
sciously  recognize  it,  and  it  brought  no  rekindling  of 
an  old  terror,  an  old  shame;  but  soon,  on  the  other 
side  of  it,  a  distance  away,  there  broke  on  the  still 
ness  a  challenge  that  he  remembered,  and  its  tone 

204 


was  contempt.  He  understood  it,  and  woke  with  a 
start,  because  of  a  sudden  fluff  of  flame  and  a  whiff 
of  smoke  from  the  grass  fire  of  ten  years  ago,  and  the 
ache  in  his  throat  gave  him  a  strangling  wrench.  His 
head  rolled ;  the  moon  swung  through  an  arc  of  alarm 
ing  length.  That  call  beyond  the  fence  struck  the 
dominant  note  of  his  life,  and  it  was  Fear.  Yet  it 
came  from  a  mere  animal, — his  grandmother's  old 
buckskin  horse,  the  most  docile  of  creatures. 

Ray  had  never  feared  the  wild  things  of  the  woods. 
The  cry  of  the  panther  in  the  dead  of  night  is  dread 
ful,  but  it  had  no  terrors  for  the  boy  in  the  forest 
solitude.  Other  fierce  pad-footed  members  of  the 
cat  tribe  had  come  and  sniffed  him  as  he  lay  under 
the  stars,  and  experience  had  taught  him  to  feign 
sleep,  for  a  suspicion  of  his  wakefulness  would  send 
them  bounding  away,  and  he  was  lonely,  always 
lonely.  One  night,  roused  from  slumber,  he  sleepily 
put  his  hand  on  the  shaggy  head  of  a  bear  that  was 
curiously  rummaging  him,  and  he  was  sorry  that  the 
beast  took  alarm  and  trotted  away, — he  would  have 
been  comfortable  to  hug.  That  was  before  the  dog 
had  come  into  his  life.  He  could  never  understand 
why  he  was  not  afraid  of  anything  whatever — not 
even  of  the  terrific  lightning  and  thunder  that  some 
times  flamed  and  crashed  and  bellowed  all  about 
him, — except  human  beings  and  the  forces  that  they 
controlled;  and  at  times  he  wondered  why  Cap  loved 
him  and  the  buckskin  horse  would  kill  him  from  hate 
if  he  could. 

Here,  then,  beyond  the  picket  fence,  was  the  proc 
lamation  of  his  shame, — coming  from  a  gentle,  super 
annuated  horse  with  no  more  spirit  than  a  snail's. 

205 


of  Fiction 


By  some  means,  perhaps  instinctive, — for  all  the 
world,  when  it  finds  out,  will  hunt  down  and  destroy 
whatsoever  fears  it  (although  the  boy  had  not  rea 
soned  it  out  thus), — the  beast  had  learned  that  the 
boy  was  afraid,  and  had  then  found  an  interest  in  life. 
Let  him  but  have  a  glimpse  of  Ray,  and,  ears  back, 
lips  drawn  from  hideous  yellow  teeth,  and  head 
thrust  horribly  forward,  he  would  snort,  charge, — 
and  the  boy  would  run  abjectly.  The  horse  had 
never  thus  treated  another  living  thing.  So  the  boy 
had  stayed  away  from  his  grandmother's,  and  she 
had  never  suspected,  and  her  love  and  prayers  had 
brought  no  revelation. 

As  the  fence  intervened,  the  horse  knew  that  a 
charge  would  be  useless;  but  when,  with  a  neat  leap, 
the  boy  nimbly  caught  his  feet  on  the  ground  within 
the  pasture,  the  buckskin  advanced  in  his  minatory 
way.  Ray  did  not  know  why  he  had  leaped  the  fence, 
unless  the  wrench  in  his  throat  had  hurled  him  over 
or  the  flame  and  smoke  of  the  grass  fire  had  driven 
him;  nor  did  he  know  why  he  went  steadily  to  meet 
the  horse,  nor  why  his  nostrils  stretched  and  his  arms 
strained  and  his  hands  clenched,  nor  why  there  was 
a  fierce  eagerness  in  him;  a  rasping  thirst  for  some 
thing  dried  his  tongue.  The  horse  came  on,  and  the 
boy,  perfectly  calm,  as  fatally  went  to  meet  him. 
There  was  no  calculation  of  results,  yet  the  lad  knew 
that  a  horse's  teeth  and  hoofs  may  be  deadly.  He 
knew  only  that  he  was  not  going  forward  to  end  all 
his  wretchedness,  as,  last  year,  the  shoemaker  who 
drank  had  done  with  a  shotgun,  and  young  Corson, 
the  thieving  clerk,  with  poison.  It  occurred  to  the 
boy  that  he  cared  nothing  about  the  teeth  and  hoofs 

206 


of  any  horse,  and  nothing  about  what  they  might  do. 

So  ridiculous  was  the  fiasco  that  he  would  have 
laughed  had  he  not  been  sorry  for  the  beast;  for  to 
see  any  rampant  thing  so  suddenly  stricken  with  fear, 
when  there  was  not  the  least  danger  nor  any  intent  of 
harm,  was  pitiful  to  see.  He  wished  to  assure  the 
buckskin  that  he  was  only  a  boy,  a  frail  boy  at  that, 
and  not  what  the  animal  had  apparently  taken  him  to 
be, — a  spawn  of  Darkness  and  Terror.  He  followed 
up  the  trembling  beast,  trying  to  reassure  him  and  to 
get  near  and  pet  him;  but  the  creature  fled  wildly  at 
every  advance,  and  when  not  pursued  stood  with  head 
aloft,  ears  cocked,  and  nostrils  vibrant,  quivering  in 
fear. 

Seeing  the  uselessness  of  further  pacific  effort,  the 
boy  sprang  over  the  fence,  went  back  to  the  main 
highway,  and  by  the  unseen  Hand  was  led  into  the 
short  cut  past  Mr.  Elderby's  house,  where  the  great 
est  terror  of  his  life — human  excepted — had  months 
ago  driven  him  to  use  the  long  way  round.  He  did 
not  know,  nor  for  a  moment  consider,  why  he  chose 
the  short  cut  tonight.  He  turned  into  it,  walking 
free  and  strong. 

Girls  had  meant  nothing  in  the  boy's  life.  That 
was  because  they  did  not  seem  members  of  his 
species,  but  something  fragile,  mysterious,  and  rank 
ing  somewhere  between  flowers  and  angels.  Thus 
his  feeling  for  them  was  composed  of  a  little  awe, 
more  reverence,  and  a  sense  of  great  remoteness. 
Never  had  he  observed  them  thoughtfully  without 
reflecting  that  they  were,  in  a  general  way,  much  like 
his  mother,  or  at  least  of  her  species;  therefore  they 
must  be  sweet  and  dainty  and  gentle  and  kind.  His 

207 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


only  large  swellings  of  the  heart  had  come  from  his 
thinking  about  them,  particularly  Grace  Elderby, 
now  twelve  years  old.  Nothing  could  have  been  so 
grand,  for  instance,  as  an  opportunity  to  rescue  her, 
single-handed,  from  wild  savages  that  had  her  tied 
to  a  tree  and  were  piling  fagots  about  her;  then  to 
dance  in  fiendish  glee  about  her  as  the  flames  rose. 
He  would  dash  up  on  a  splendid  charger,  his  sword 
flashing  in  the  sun;  savage  heads  would  roll  in  the 
dust,  or  fall  open,  cleaved  in  twain;  there  would  be 
wild  yells  of  fright  and  a  wilder  flight  for  life ;  he  would 
leap  from  his  horse,  speak  reassuring  words  while  he 
severed  her  bonds,  mount  with  her  in  his  arms,  and 
fly  away,  away,  away. 

Twice  had  Grace  seen  his  shame.  She  had  seen 
him  pale,  and  run  when  her  father's  big,  noisy  dog 
had  made  a  flamboyant  show  of  rage,  and  she  had 
seen  him  stand  mute  and  white  when  Andy  Car- 
michael,  older  and  larger  and  much  stronger  than 
Ray,  grossly  insulted  him  in  her  presence.  The 
Elderby  dog  was  the  terror  that  had  closed  the  short 
cut, — closed  it  to  Ray  alone. 

Thus  into  the  short  cut  swung  Ray,  walking  strong 
and  free,  the  ache  in  his  throat  not  so  painful  as 
before.  The  dog  would  be  on  guard,  and  the  boy 
was  empty-handed. 

The  shadows  were  deep  under  the  trees,  or  pos 
sibly  the  dog's  hate  and  rage  blinded  him  to  what 
the  buckskin  had  seen,  or  perhaps  he  was  of  a  dif 
ferent  metal.  Near  the  rear  of  the  premises  the  big 
brute  came  in  so  great  a  fury  that  he  broke  through 
the  palings.  The  ensuing  collision, — for  the  boy 
stood  his  ground, — was  so  violent  that  Ray  went 

208 


\ 


Breaking  Through 


down  underneath,  and  an  ecstasy  thrilled  him  when 
the  flame  swished  and  the  smoke  stung,  and  he  felt 
something  sink  into  his  shoulder  and  a  stifle  of  hot, 
foamy  breath  in  his  face. 

It  seemed  to  have  been  easily  and  quickly  done. 
True,  when  he  came  erecT:  he  was  weak  and  tired, 
and  swayed  dizzily,  and  wondered  why.  As,  with 
out  the  least  exultation,  or  even  triumph,  or  even 
gratification,  he  looked  down  at  his  work,  and  saw 
with  surprise  how  deeply  the  ground  had  been  torn 
up,  two  men  with  sticks  came  running  out, — evi 
dently  there  had  been  some  noise,  despite  all  his  care 
for  silence.  One  was  Mr.  Elderby,  the  other  his 
coachman.  The  gentleman  stood  in  astonishment  as 
the  boy,  controlling  his  heavy  breathing,  stepped  into 
the  moonlight  and  calmly  faced  him. 

"Ray  Gilbert!  What  are  you  doing  here,  at  this 
time  of  night?" 

"  I  was  walking  in  the  path.  Your  dog  attacked  me." 

"What  did  you  kill  him  with?" 

"My  hands." 

Mr.  Elderby  stood  in  wonder  as  he  studied  the  lad. 
"I'm  thankful  to  God  that  you  are  alive.  It's  a 
miracle."  He  noticed  that  Ray's  clothing  was  torn 
nearly  to  rags.  In  compassion  he  laid  a  hand  on 
Ray's  shoulder,  quickly  withdrew  it,  and  examined 
it  in  the  moonlight.  "You  are  hurt,  my  son.  Come 
into  the  house.  I'll  put  you  to  bed  and  send  for  the 
do6lor  and  your  parents." 

^ Thank  you,  sir;  I  have  something  to  do." 

"But  you  must  have  attention. — Jake,  hitch  up 
the  bay  to  the  light  buggy, — quick, — and  drive  him 
home." 

209 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"No,  sir;  but  I'm  much  obliged.  I  have  some 
thing  to  do.  Good  night."  The  shadows  enveloped 
him. 

The  short  cut  led  him  over  a  sharp  hill  and  into 
the  road  again,  and  there  he  sat  on  the  bank  till  his 
strength  came  back.  Then  he  went  on  till  he  arrived 
at  a  gate  leading  into  a  private  avenue.  The  ache 
in  his  throat  was  nearly  gone.  Passing  quietly  up 
the  driveway  and  round  to  the  rear  of  the  house,  he 
came  to  a  window,  which  was  open  at  the  top,  and 
sharply  tapped  on  the  glass. 

"Who's  that?"  came  a  voice. 

"Dress  and  come  out,  Andy  Carmichael.  I'm 
Ray  Gilbert." 

The  sash  was  thrown  up  and  the  boy  glowered  in 
the  opening.  "Ray  Gilbert! — you  cowardly,  sneak 
ing  puppy!  What  do  you  want?" 

"I  want  to  see  you.  Dress  and  come  out.  Don't 
wake  anybody." 

He  spoke  quietly,  trying  to  appear  his  usual  self 
lest  this  monster,  this  overshadowing  terror  of  his 
life,  should  see  whatever  it  was  that  had  frightened 
the  horse  and  slain  the  dog.  This  was  the  boy  who 
had  beaten  him  so  often  and  with  such  merciless, 
sodden,  gluttonous  enjoyment;  the  boy  who,  when  he 
did  not  care  to  give  the  beatings  himself — no  provo 
cation  was  ever  needed, —  would  stand  threateningly 
by  and  let  the  smaller  boys,  even  to  the  little  ones 
with  soft,  puny  fists,  beat  the  coward  as  long  as  they 
wished,  merely  for  the  love  of  beating  what  did  not 
resist;  the  boy  whose  lies  had  brought  undeserved 
whippings  from  the  teacher;  the  boy  who  openly  in 
sulted  him  whenever  he  pleased,  and,  worst  of  all, 

210 


Breaking  Through 


had  humiliated  him  before  Grace  Elderby.  It  was 
the  presence  of  this  boy  at  the  party  that  evening, 
and  the  looks  that  he  gave  Ray,  and  the  sly  tortures 
he  inflicted,  that  had  sent  up  the  curtain  on  the 
night's  drama. 

In  wondering  surprise  Andy  studied  the  bare 
headed,  ragged,  dirty  figure  standing  in  the  moon 
light;  and  as  crimson  looks  a  muddy  brown  in  such 
a  light,  he  mistook  the  smears  on  the  other's  face 
and  the  dark  splotches  on  his  clothing.  What  could 
the  creature  want  of  him  at  this  time  of  night  and 
with  that  extraordinary  appearance?  Likely  Ray 
had  been  set  upon  and  was  seeking  any  refuge.  It 
would  be  joyous  to  complete  the  work  that  the  others 
had  begun.  Andy  soon  emerged  from  the  house. 

"Come  this  way,"  said  his  mysterious  visitant, 
and  perplexed  Andy  followed  him  to  the  rear  of  the 
fowl-house,  where  the  light  was  clear.  The  flame 
and  smoke  of  the  old  grass  fire  were  strong  in  the 
air. 

Ray  halted,  and  faced  him. 

"Take  off  your  coat,"  he  quietly  said,  removing 
his  own  tattered  garment. 

"What  for?"  with  a  slight  quaver  composed  of 
anger — and  something  else;  for  there  was  a  touch 
of  the  uncanny  here. 

"We  are  going  to  fight." 

"Fight,  eh!  What  put  that  into  your  fool  head?" 
Under  the  initial  impulse  from  the  challenge,  Andy 
was  all  heat  and  eagerness,  and  he  bristled  and 
swelled;  but  though,  in  some  vital  ways,  human  sense 
is  less  acute  than  brute  sense,  Andy  did  feel  some 
thing  of  what  the  buckskin  had  felt,  something  of 

211 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


what  had  slain  the  dog,  and  his  heart  thumped  with 
a  strange  heaviness.  "What  do  you  want  to  fight 
for  ?  I'd  beat  the  life  out  of  you."' 

It  failed  of  the  effect  intended,  and  Andy  found 
his  head  suddenly  twisted  to  one  side  by  a  slap  on 
the  cheek.  He  stepped  back,  white  with  fury,  tossed 
his  coat  aside,  and  hurled  himself  upon  the  slender 
figure  waiting  with  such  unearthly  composure. 

#:*#:£:***% 

Dawn  was  flooding  the  east,  and  still  the  boy 
lurched  and  floundered  on  and  on,  keeping  to  the 
road  that  led  into  the  wilderness.  Occasionally  he 
would  stop  for  a  minute's  rest  and  to  listen  for  the 
baying  of  Frazier's  bloodhound;  and  he  wondered, 
in  a  purely  detached  and  scientific  way,  whether  he 
had  sufficient  strength  and  acuteness  left  for  another 
such  grapple.  It  was  merely  an  engaging  specula 
tion,  and  was  complicated  with  his  determination  to 
perform  another  task  before  his  work  was  done.  It 
would  nearly  break  his  heart  to  be  stopped  now. 
Likely  the  dog  would  not  attack  him,  but  merely 
hold  him  at  bay  until  the  pursuers  came  to  his  sum 
mons;  but  if  the  dog  would  not  attack,  then  the  boy 
must.  Would  strength  or  even  life  be  left  for  the 
last  and  most  important  of  all  the  tasks  to  which  the 
Hand  was  leading  him  ? — for  there  was  a  good  dis 
tance  yet  to  be  covered,  and  work  to  be  done  at  the 
end  of  it.  He  was  thankful  that  the  ache  had  en 
tirely  left  his  throat  and  that  a  strange  warmth  had 
kindled  in  his  breast. 

Perhaps  they  had  not  really  meant  what  they  said 
about  setting  Frazier's  bloodhound  to  run  him  down. 
The  remark  had  come  from  the  yardman,  not  Mr. 

212 


DAWN  WAS   FLOODING  THE  EAST,  AND  STILL  THE   BOY 
LURCHED  AND  FLOUNDERED  ON  AND  ON." 


FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  GORDON  Ross. 


ther 


Breaking  Through 


Carmichael  himself,  who  had  appeared  too  stunned 
to  think  of  anything  but  his  son.  If  they  had  wished 
to  kill  the  outlaw,  or  take  him  and  send  him  to  jail, 
why  had  they  not  seized  and  bound  him  instead  of 
staring  at  him  so  queerly,  and  then  the  yardman 
foolishly  saying,  as  Ray  staggered  away  and  they 
picked  up  the  limp  figure,  that  they  would  get 
Frazier's  bloodhound  and  set  him  on  the  trail  ? 
They  were  two  strong  men  against  a  mere  boy,  who 
was  so  exhausted  that  only  with  a  mighty  effort 
could  he  stand.  It  was  Andy's  final  despairing  cry 
that  had  waked  them. 

Without  either  triumph  or  regret  the  boy  struggled 
on.  The  broadening  of  day  made  him  partly  aware 
of  the  savage  presence  that  he  made  and  of  the  likeli 
hood  that  traffic  might  open  on  the  road  at  any  time. 
Some  of  his  clothing  was  gone,  and  he  had  bound 
the  remaining  strips  and  rags  about  him  as  best  he 
could.  He  did  not  know  about  the  aspect  of  his  face 
and  hair,  but  he  realized  that  should  any  one  en 
counter  him  in  the  road  he  might  be  forced  to  do 
something  distasteful,  and  that  the  urgent  task  ahead 
might  be  interrupted. 

A  horseman  and  two  market  wagons  passed  at 
intervals,  but  the  boy  was  hidden  at  the  roadside. 
So  he  reeled  on  and  on,  and  so  he  came  at  last  to  the 
great  pine.  There  he  turned  out  and  crawled  as  much 
as  walked  through  the  trees  and  undergrowth  to  the 
summit  of  a  low  ridge,  where  he  felt  the  sunshine 
fall  on  his  half-naked  back.  It  was  so  luxurious  that 
he  paused  in  the  full  glare  of  it,  and  slowly  turned, 
as  one  very  cold  before  a  warming  fire,  and  reveled 
in  it.  With  every  moment  he  felt  it  pouring  into 

213 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


him,  tingling  softly  as  it  ran.  It  was  odd  with  what 
cheerful  industry  it  hunted  out  the  coldest  places  in 
him  and  kindled  snug  little  fires  under  them.  Most 
of  all,  it  gave  attention  to  the  warm  place  that  had 
already  started  in  the  center,  and  that  one  woke  to  a 
wonderful  glow.  Thus  refreshed,  he  descended  the 
slope  on  the  farther  side  and  came  to  a  morass 
threaded  by  a  friendly  stream.  At  the  edge  of  the 
bog  he  halted  and  looked  keenly  about.  It  had  been 
two  years  since  his  last  visit  to  this  spot,  and,  though 
his  memory  of  the  woods  was  excellent,  he  now  found 
himself  dull  and  his  vision  bad.  Ordinarily  he  would 
have  found  at  once  what  he  was  seeking.  Up  and 
down  along  the  margin  he  stumbled,  straining  his 
dim  eyes,  crawling  sometimes  and  using  groping 
hands  in  the  search.  Surely  no  one  else  could  have 
come  upon  this  remote  spot,  found  the  treasure,  and 
taken  it  away! 

At  last!  It  had  seemed  to  him  a  very  long  time; 
but  all  else  was  submerged  in  the  joy  of  the  first 
triumph,  the  first  elation,  that  the  lad  had  felt  in 
many,  many  a  day.  Every  shadow  that  had  lain  on 
his  conscience  vanished,  every  shame  that  had  cursed 
his  years  was  swept  away,  all  bitterness  took  flight, 
and  something  fine  and  sweet  raced  through  him 
deliciously. 

There  was  no  waste  of  precious  time  in  hunting 
for  something  with  which  to  dig.  Then,  too,  the 
glorious  sun  had  mounted,  and  was  pouring  its  flood 
of  light  and  warmth  on  his  work  and  him.  Like  the 
tines  of  a  digging-fork,  his  fingers  sank  into  the  ground. 

The  precious  treasure,  hugged  gently,  reverently, 
with  a  fierce  sense  of  protection,  was  balm  to  every 

214 


Breaking  Through 


hurt.  With  it  thus  clasped,  the  boy  laboriously  made 
the  ascent  of  the  ridge  on  his  return,  and  paused  on 
the  summit.  There  was  something  strange  in  the 
distance  with  which  the  descending  slope  to  the  road 
stretched  so  far,  so  bewilderingly  far.  He  contem 
plated  it,  and  wondered  if  he  could  compass  it  in  a 
lifetime.  The  impulse  to  go  on — for  this  last  task 
was  only  half  done — overcame  the  check  from  the 
illusion,  and  he  started  down.  His  knees  developed 
a  foolish  way  of  suddenly  flexing  and  seating  him  hard 
on  the  ground.  At  first  it  was  annoying,  but  when  it 
happened  the  second  time  the  absurdity  of  it,  and 
the  ridiculous  suddenness  of  the  surprise  that  it 
caused,  made  the  boy  laugh  aloud.  It  astonished  him 
to  hear  himself  laugh,  for  that  was  very  unusual,  and 
he  wondered.  But  he  rose,  staggered  on,  and  found 
himself  chuckling  inside, — a  most  astonishing  thing! 
He  could  not  imagine  why  he  was  doing  it.  When 
he  dropped  the  third  time  his  voice  rang  in  so  loud 
and  merry  a  laugh  that  two  blue  jays  came  and 
scolded  him  terrifically,  and  he  laughed  at  them  till 
his  tears  ran.  He  was  so  absurdly  happy  that  he 
feared  he  would  hug  his  treasure  too  hard. 

If  only  his  mother  were  with  him,  that  she  might 
see  how  funny  it  all  was,  and  laugh  and  be  happy 
with  him,  and  then  walk  with  him  hand  in  hand 
through  the  beautiful  woods,  while  he  showed  her 
all  the  wonderful  things  that  he  knew!  But  no; 
his  sisters  and  his  father  must  be  with  them, — and 
Grace,  and  Andy,  too,  and  the  teacher  and  dear  old 
grandmother.  What  a  glorious  time  they  would  have ! 

The  boy  started,  for  a  sweet,  coaxing  smother  had 
suddenly  fallen  on  him.  He  fought  it  away  and  rose 

215 


S  Fiction 


with  great  difficulty  and  in  some  alarm  lest  he  should 
not  reach  the  road.  On  he  lurched,  clinging  to  the 
bushes  as  he  swayed,  trying  not  to  laugh,  for  he  had 
an  idea  that  he  was  very  crass  and  silly.  He  saw  the 
road,  only  a  rod  away,  and  suddenly  reflected  that 
he  was  not  presentable.  Though  staying  till  night 
would  delay  the  completion  of  his  task,  there  was 
no  help  for  it,  and  he  was  content,  and  laughed  be 
cause  he  was.  And  he  knew  that  he  really  needed 
rest;  for  suppose  his  legs  should  practise  those  gro 
tesque  eccentricities  in  the  road,  and  somebody  should 
see!  He  sat  down,  carefully  guarding  his  treasure,  to 
wait  in  happy  patience.  He  would  not  sleep,  and  so 
lose  something  of  his  conscious  peace,  something  of 
thinking  about  what  was  going  to  happen  at  the  end. 
No,  he  must  not  sleep. 

The  frantically  joyous  barking  of  a  dog  standing 
over  him — not  at  all  like  the  deep  baying  of  Frazier's 
bloodhound, — woke  the  boy,  and  he  tried  to  raise  his 
head,  but  it  fell  back  like  lead.  He  laughed  drowsily 
in  quiet  happiness,  as  he  feebly  patted  the  devoted 
head. 

"Dear  old  Cap,"  he  said.  :<You  came,  didn't 
you?" 

Messengers  from  Elderby's  and  Carmichaers  had 
brought  strange  news  to  the  boy's  parents.  In  alarm 
they  had  started  out  in  the  surrey,  taking  Cap,  in  the 
sure  faith  that  he  would  find  their  son.  They  had 
seen  that  Andy  was  recovering, — he  had  been  much 
more  frightened  than  hurt.  It  was  they  whose  crash 
ing  through  the  bushes  the  boy  heard  after  Cap  had 
announced  his  find.  They  halted  and  paled  when 
they  saw  the  torn,  bruised,  helpless  figure  smiling  at 

216 


Breaking  Through 


them  from  the  ground,  and  so  full  of  loving  gladness 
merely  to  see  them  that  there  was  no  room  for  sur 
prise  at  their  being  there.  The  mother  was  quicker 
than  the  father;  she  ran  forward  and  fell  on  her 
knees  beside  her  son. 

"My  boy!"  she  cried  in  a  choke. 

He  took  her  hand  and  smiled  into  her  face.  In 
all  her  life  she  had  never  seen  a  smile  so  sweet,  so 
happy.  With  his  free  hand  he  lifted  his  treasure. 

"Mother,"  radiantly,  "here  it  is!" 

"What,  my  poor  dear?" 

"Don't  you  remember?  I  told  you  two  years  ago 
that  I'd  found  it,  and  you  said  you'd  be  very  glad  if 
I'd  bring  it  to  you  when  I  came  this  way  again." 

She  opened  the  parcel,  wrapped  with  so  fond  care 
in  leaves  and  damp  moss. 

"Why,  it's  the  rare  and  beautiful  fern,  and  you 
were  taking  it  to  me!  Bless  your  dear  heart!"  and, 
much  to  his  surprise,  she  began  to  cry. 


217 


A  LOST  STORY 

BY 
FRANK  NORRIS 


I 


Reprinted  from  The  Century  Magazine  of  July,  1903 
by  permission 


A  LOST  STORY 

T  NINE  o'clock  that  morning  Rosella 
arrived  in  her  little  office  on  the  third 
floor  of  the  great  publishing  house  of 
Conant  &  Company,  and  putting  up 
her  veil   without   removing   her   hat, 
addressed  herself  to  her  day's  work. 
She  went  through  her  meager  and  unimportant 
mail,  wrote  a  few  replies,  and  then  turned  to  the  pile 
of  volunteer  manuscripts  which  it  was  her  duty  to 
read  and  report  upon. 

For  Rosella  was  Conant's  "reader,"  and  so  well 
was  she  acquainted  with  the  needs  of  the  house,  so 
thorough  was  she  in  her  work,  and  so  great  was  the 
reliance  upon  her  judgment,  that  she  was  the  only 
one  employed.  Manuscripts  that  she  "passed  up" 
went  direcit  to  Conant  himself,  while  the  great  army 
of  the  "declined"  had  no  second  chance.  For  the 
"  unavailables "  her  word  was  final. 

From  the  first — which  was  when  her  initial  literary 
venture,  a  little  book  of  short  tales  of  Sicily  and  the 
Sicilians,  was  published  by  the  house — her  relations 
with  the  Conants  had  been  intimate.  Conant  be 
lieved  in  her,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  time  when  her 
books  could  be  considered  safe  investments,  was  will 
ing  to  lose  a  few  dollars  during  the  time  of  her 

221 


apprenticeship.  For  the  tales  had  enjoyed  only  a 
fleeting  succes  d'estime.  Her  style  was,  like  her  tem 
perament,  delicately  constructed  and  of  extreme  re 
finement,  not  the  style  to  appeal  to  the  masses.  It 
was  "searched,"  a  little  precieuse,  and  the  tales  them 
selves  were  diaphanous  enough,  polished  little  conies, 
the  points  subtle,  the  action  turning  upon  minute 
psychological  distinctions. 

Yet  she  had  worked  desperately  hard  upon  their 
composition.  She  was  of  those  very  few  who  sin 
cerely  cannot  write  unless  the  mood  be  propitious; 
and  her  state  of  mind,  the  condition  of  her  emotions, 
was  very  apt  to  influence  her  work  for  good  or  ill, 
as  the  case  might  be. 

But  a  succes  d'estime  fills  no  purses,  and  favorable 
reviews  in  the  literary  periodicals  are  not  "  negotiable 
paper."  Rosella  could  not  yet  live  wholly  by  her  pen, 
and  thought  herself  fortunate  when  the  house  offered 
her  the  position  of  reader. 

This  arrival  of  hers  was  no  doubt  to  be  hastened, 
if  not  actually  assured,  by  the  publication  of  her 
first  novel,  "Patroclus,"  upon  which  she  was  at  this 
time  at  work.  The  evening  before,  she  had  read  the 
draft  of  the  story  to  Trevor,  and  even  now,  as  she 
cut  the  string  of  the  first  manuscript  of  the  pile,  she 
was  thinking  over  what  Trevor  had  said  of  it,  and 
smiling  as  she  thought. 

It  was  through  Conant  that  Rosella  had  met  the 
great  novelist  and  critic,  and  it  was  because  of  Conant 
that  Trevor  had  read  Rosella's  first  little  book.  He 
had  taken  an  interest  at  once,  and  had  found  occa 
sion  to  say  to  her  that  she  had  it  in  her  to  make  a 
niche  for  herself  in  American  letters. 

222 


He  was  a  man  old  enough  to  be  her  grandfather,, 
and  Rosella  often  came  to  see  him  in  his  study,  to 
advise  with  him  as  to  doubtful  points  in  her  stories 
or  as  to  ideas  for  those  as  yet  unwritten.  To  her  his 
opinion  was  absolutely  final.  This  old  gentleman, 
this  elderly  man  of  letters,  who  had  seen  the  rise  and 
fall  of  a  dozen  schools,  was  above  the  influence  of 
fads,  and  he  whose  books  were  among  the  classics 
even  before  his  death  was  infallible  in  his  judgments 
of  the  work  of  the  younger  writers.  All  the  stages 
of  their  evolution  were  known  to  him — all  their  mis 
takes,  all  their  successes.  He  understood;  and  a 
story  by  one  of  them,  a  poem,  a  novel,  that  bore  the 
stamp  of  his  approval,  was  "sterling."  Work  that 
he  declared  a  failure  was  such  in  very  earnest,  and 
might  as  well  be  consigned  as  speedily  as  possible 
to  the  grate  or  the  waste-basket. 

When,  therefore,  he  had  permitted  himself  to  be 
even  enthusiastic  over  "Patroclus,"  Rosella  had  been 
elated  beyond  the  power  of  expression,  and  had  re 
turned  home  with  blazing  cheeks  and  shining  eyes, 
to  lie  awake  half  the  night  thinking  of  her  story, 
planning,  perfecting,  considering  and  reconsidering. 

Like  her  short  stories,  the  tale  was  of  extreme 
delicacy  in  both  sentiment  and  design.  It  was  a 
little  fanciful,  a  little  elaborate,  but  of  an  ephemeral 
poetry.  It  was  all  "atmosphere,"  and  its  success 
depended  upon  the  minutest  precision  of  phrasing 
and  the  nicest  harmony  between  idea  and  word. 
There  was  much  in  mere  effect  of  words;  and  more 
important  than  mere  plot  was  the  feeling  produced 
by  the  balancing  of  phrases  and  the  cadence  of  sen 
tence  and  paragraph. 

223 


TlSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


Only  a  young  woman  of  Rosella's  complexity,  of 
her  extreme  sensitiveness,  could  have  conceived 
"Patroclus,"  nor  could  she  herself  hope  to  complete 
it  successfully  at  any  other  period  of  her  life.  Any 
earlier  she  would  have  been  too  immature  to  adapt 
herself  to  its  demands ;  any  later  she  would  have  lost 
the  spontaneity,  the  jeunesse,  and  the  freshness  which 
were  to  contribute  to  its  greatest  charm. 

The  tale  itself  was  simple.  Instead  of  a  plot,  a 
complication,  it  built  itself  around  a  central  idea, 
and  it  was  the  originality  of  this  idea,  this  motif, 
that  had  impressed  Trevor  so  strongly.  Indeed, 
Rosella's  draft  could  convey  no  more  than  that.  Her 
treatment  was  all  to  follow.  But  here  she  was  sure 
of  herself.  The  style  would  come  naturally  as  she 
worked. 

She  was  ambitious,  and  in  her  craving  to  succeed, 
to  be  recognized  and  accepted,  was  all  that  pas 
sionate  eagerness  that  only  the  artist  knows.  So 
far  success  had  been  denied  her;  but  now  at  last  she 
seemed  to  see  light.  Her  "Patroclus"  would  make 
her  claims  good.  Everything  depended  upon  that. 

She  had  thought  over  this  whole  situation  while 
she  removed  the  wrappings  from  the  first  manu 
script  of  the  pile  upon  her  desk.  Even  then  her 
fingers  itched  for  the  pen,  and  the  sentences  and 
phrases  of  the  opening  defined  themselves  clearly 
in  her  mind.  But  that  was  not  to  be  the  immediate 
work.  The  unlovely  bread-and-butter  business 
pressed  upon  her.  With  a  long  breath  she  put  the 
vision  from  her  and  turned  her  attention  to  the  task 
at  hand. 

After    her    custom,    she    went    through    the    pile, 

224 


glancing  at  the  titles  and  first  lines  of  each  manu 
script,  and  putting  it  aside  in  the  desk  corner  to  be 
considered  in  detail  later  on. 

She  almost  knew  in  advance  that  of  the  thirty-odd 
volunteers  of  that  day's  batch  not  one  would  prove 
available.  The  manuscripts  were  tagged  and  num 
bered  in  the  business  office  before  they  came  to  her, 
and  the  number  of  the  first  she  picked  up  that 
morning  was  1120,  and  this  since  the  first  of 
the  year.  Of  the  eleven  hundred  she  had  accepted 
only  three.  Of  these  three,  two  had  failed  entirely 
after  publication;  the  third  had  barely  paid  expenses. 
What  a  record!  How  hopeless  it  seemed!  Yet  the 
strugglers  persisted.  Did  it  not  seem  as  if  No.  1120, 
Mrs.  Allen  Bowen  of  Bentonville,  South  Dakota- 
did  it  not  seem  as  if  she  could  know  that  the  great 
American  public  has  no  interest  in,  no  use  for, 
"Thoughts  on  the  Higher  Life,"  a  series  of  articles 
written  for  the  county  paper — foolish  little  articles 
revamped  from  Ruskin  and  Matthew  Arnold? 

And  1121 — what  was  this?  The  initial  lines  ran: 
"Oh,  damn  everything!'  exclaimed  Percival  Hoi- 
combe,  as  he  dropped  languidly  into  a  deep-seated 
leather  chair  by  the  club  window  which  commanded 
a  view  of  the  noisy  street  crowded  with  fashion  and 
frivolity,  wherein  the  afternoon's  sun,  freed  from  its 
enthralling  mists,  which  all  day  long  had  jealously 
obscured  his  beams,  was  gloating  o'er  the  panels  of 
the  carriages  of  noblemen  who  were  returning  from 
race-track  and  park,  and  the  towhead  of  the  little 
sweeper  who  plied  his  humble  trade  which  earned 
his  scanty  supper  that  he  ate  miles  away  from  that 
gay  quarter  wherein  Percival  Holcombe,  who— 

225 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


Rosella  paused  for  sheer  breath.  This  sort  did  not 
need  to  be  read.  It  was  declined  already.  She 
picked  up  the  next.  It  was  in  an  underwear-box  of 
green  pasteboard. 

"The  staid  old  town  of  Salem,"  it  read,  "was  all 
astir  one  bright  and  sunny  morning  in  the  year  1604." 
Rosella  groaned.  "Another!"  she  said.  "Now," 
she  continued,  speaking  to  herself  and  shutting  her 
eyes — "now  about  the  next  page  the  *  portly  burgess' 
will  address  the  heroine  as  'Mistress,'  and  will  say, 
'An'  whither  away  so  early?"  She  turned  over  to 
verify.  She  was  wrong.  The  portly  burgess  had  said : 
"Good  morrow,  Mistress  Priscilla.  An'  where  away 
so  gaily  bedizened?"  She  sighed  as  she  put  the 
manuscript  away.  "Why,  and,  oh,  why  will  they 
do  it!"  she  murmured. 

The  next  one,  1123,  was  a  story  "Compiled  from 
the  Memoirs  of  One  Perkin  Althorpe,  Esq.,  Some 
time  Field-Coronet  in  His  Majesty's  Troop  of  Horse," 
and  was  sown  thick  with  objurgation— "  Ods- 
wounds!"  "Body  o'  me!"  "A  murrain  on  thee!" 
"By  my  halidom!"  and  all  the  rest  of  the  sweepings 
and  tailings  of  Scott  and  the  third-rate  romanticists. 

"Declined,"  said  Rosella,  firmly,  tossing  it  aside. 
She  turned  to  1124: 

"About  three  o'clock  of  a  roseate  day  in  early 
spring  two  fashionables  of  the  softer  sex,  elegantly 
arrayed,  might  have  been  observed  sauntering  lan 
guidly  down  Fifth  Avenue. 

"'Are  you  going  to  Mrs.  Van  Billion's  musicale 
tonight?'  inquired  the  older  of  the  two,  a  tall  and 
striking  demi-brunette,  turning  to  her  companion. 

"'No,  indeed/  replied  the  person  thus  addressed, 

226 


a  blonde  of  exquisite  coloring.  'No,  indeed.  The 
only  music  one  hears  there  is  the  chink  of  silver  dol 
lars.  Ha!  ha!  ha!  ha!" 

Rosella  winced  as  if  in  actual  physical  anguish. 
"And  the  author  calls  it  a  'social  satire'!"  she  ex 
claimed.  "How  can  she!  How  can  she!" 

She  turned  to  the  next.  It  was  written  in  script 
that  was  a  model  of  neatness,  margined,  correctly 
punctuated,  and  addressed,  "Harold  Vickers,"  with 
the  town  and  State.  Its  title  was  "The  Last  Dryad," 
and  the  poetry  of  the  phrase  stuck  in  her  mind.  She 
read  the  first  lines,  then  the  first  page,  then  two. 

"Come,"  said  Rosella,  "there  is  something  in  this." 
At  once  she  was  in  a  little  valley  in  Boeotia  in  the  Ar 
cadian  day.  It  was  evening.  There  was  no  wind. 
Somewhere  a  temple,  opalescent  in  the  sunset,  sug 
gested  rather  than  defined  itself.  A  landscape 
developed  such  as  Turner  in  a  quiet  mood  might 
have  evolved,  and  with  it  a  feeling  of  fantasy,  of  re 
moteness,  of  pure,  true  classicism.  A  note  of  pipes 
was  in  the  air,  sheep  bleated,  and  Daphne,  knee-deep 
in  the  grass,  surging  an  answer  to  the  pipes,  went 
down  to  meet  her  shepherd. 

Rosella  breathed  a  great  sigh  of  relief.  Here  at 
last  was  a  possibility — a  new  writer  with  a  new,  sane 
view  of  his  world  and  his  work.  A  new  poet,  in  fine. 
She  consulted  the  name  and  address  given — Harold 
Vickers,  Ash  Fork,  Arizona.  There  was  something 
in  that  Harold;  perhaps  education  and  good  people. 
But  the  Vickers  told  her  nothing.  And  where  was 
Ash  Fork,  Arizona;  and  why  and  how  had  "The  Last 
Dryad"  been  written  there,  of  all  places  the  green 
world  round  ?  How  came  the  inspiration  for  that 

227 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


classic  paysage,  such  as  Ingres  would  have  loved, 
from  the  sage-brush,  and  cactus  ?  "  Well,"  she 
told  herself,  "Moore  wrote  'Lalla  Rookh'  in  a 
back  room  in  London,  among  the  chimney-pots 
and  soot.  Maybe  the  proportion  is  inverse.  But, 
Mr.  Harold  Vickers  of  Ash  Fork,  Arizona,  your  little 
book  is,  to  say  the  least,  well  worth  its  ink." 

She  went  through  the  other  manuscripts  as  quickly 
as  was  consistent  with  fairness,  and  declined  them 
all.  Then  settling  herself  comfortably  in  her  chair, 
she  plunged,  with  the  delight  of  an  explorer  venturing 
upon  new  ground,  into  the  pages  of  "The  Last 

Dryad." 

##*#*##* 

Four  hours  later  she  came,  as  it  were,  to  herself, 
to  find  that  she  sat  lax  in  her  place,  with  open,  up 
turned  palms,  and  eyes  vacantly  fixed  upon  the  op 
posite  wall.  "The  Last  Dryad,"  read  to  the  final 
word,  was  tumbled  in  a  heap  upon  the  floor.  It  was 
past  her  luncheon  hour.  Her  cheeks  flamed;  her 
hands  were  cold  and  moist;  and  her  heart  beat  thick 
and  slow,  clogged,  as  it  were,  by  its  own  heaviness. 

But  the  lapse  of  time  was  naught  to  her,  nor  the 
fever  that  throbbed  in  her  head.  Her  world,  like  a 
temple  of  glass,  had  come  down  dashing  about  her. 
The  future,  which  had  beckoned  her  onward, — a 
fairy  in  the  path  wherein  her  feet  were  set, — was 
gone,  and  at  the  goal  of  her  ambition  and  striving 
she  saw  suddenly  a  stranger  stand,  plucking  down 
the  golden  apples  that  she  so  long  and  passionately 
had  desired. 

For  "The  Last  Dryad"  was  her  own,  her  very, 
very  own  and  cherished  "Patroclus." 

228 


That  the  other  author  had  taken  the  story  from 
a  different  view-point,  that  his  treatment  varied,  that 
the  approach  was  his  own,  that  the  wording  was  his 
own,  produced  not  the  least  change  upon  the  final 
result.  The  idea,  the  motif,  was  identical  in  each; 
identical  in  every  particular,  identical  in  effect,  in 
suggestion.  The  two  tales  were  one.  That  was  the 
fa6t,  the  unshakable  fa6l,  the  block  of  granite  that  a 
malicious  fortune  had  flung  athwart  her  little  pavilion 
of  glass. 

At  first  she  jumped  to  the  conclusion  of  chicanery. 
At  first  there  seemed  no  other  explanation.  "He 
stole  it,"  she  cried,  rousing  vehemently  from  her 
inertia—  "mine — mine.  He  stole  my  story." 

But  common  sense  prevailed  in  the  end.  No,  there 
was  no  possible  chance  for  theft.  She  had  not  spoken 
of  "  Patroclus "  to  anyone  but  Trevor.  Hermann- 
script  draft  had  not  once  left  her  hands.  No;  it  was 
a  coincidence,  nothing  more — one  of  those  fateful 
coincidences  with  which  the  scientific  and  literary 
worlds  are  crowded.  And  he,  this  unknown  Vickers, 
this  haphazard  genius  of  Ash  Fork,  Arizona,  had 
the  prior  claim.  Her  "Patroclus"  must  remain  un 
written.  The  sob  caught  and  clutched  at  her  throat 
at  last. 

"Oh,"  she  cried  in  a  half-whisper — "oh,  my 
chance,  my  hopes,  my  foolish  little  hopes!  And  now 
this!  To  have  it  all  come  to  nothing — when  I  was  so 
proud,  so  buoyant — and  Mr.  Trevor  and  all!  Oh, 
could  anything  be  more  cruel!" 

And  then,  of  all  moments,  ex  machina,  Harold 
Vickers's  card  was  handed  in. 

She  stared  at  it  an  instant,  through  tears,  amazed 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


and  incredulous.  Surely  some  one  was  playing  a 
monstrous  joke  upon  her  today.  Soon  she  would 
come  upon  the  strings  and  false  bottoms  and  wigs 
and  masks  of  the  game.  But  the  office  boy's  con 
templation  of  her  distress  was  real.  Something  must  be 
done.  The  whole  machine  of  things  could  not  indefi 
nitely  hang  thus  suspended,  inert,  waiting  her  pleasure. 

"Yes,"  she  exclaimed  all  at  once.  "Very  well; 
show  him  in;"  and  she  had  no  more  than  gathered 
up  the  manuscript  of  "The  Last  Dryad"  from  the 
floor  when  its  author  entered  the  room. 

He  was  very  young, — certainly  not  more  than 
twenty-three, — tall,  rather  poorly  dressed,  an  in 
valid,  beyond  doubt,  and  the  cough  and  the  flush 
on  the  high  cheek-bone  spelled  the  name  of  the 
disease.  The  pepper-and-salt  suit,  the  shoe-string 
cravat,  and  the  broad  felt  hat  were  frankly  Arizona. 
And  he  was  diffident,  constrained,  sitting  uncom 
fortably  on  the  chair  as  a  mark  of  respect,  smiling 
continually,  and,  as  he  talked,  throwing  in  her  name 
at  almost  every  phrase: 

"No,  Miss  Beltis;  yes,  Miss  Beltis;  quite  right, 
Miss  Beltis." 

His  embarrassment  helped  her  to  her  own  com 
posure,  and  by  the  time  she  came  to  question  him 
as  to  his  book  and  the  reasons  that  brought  him  from 
Ash  Fork  to  New  York,  she  had  herself  in  hand. 

"I  have  received  an  unimportant  government  ap 
pointment  in  the  Fisheries  Department,"  he  ex 
plained,  "and  as  I  was  in  New  York  for  the  week  I 
thought  I  might — not  that  I  wished  to  seem  to  hurry 
you,  Miss  Beltis — but  I  thought  I  might  ask  if  you 
had  come  to — to  my  little  book  yet." 

230 


In  five  minutes  of  time  Rosella  knew  just  where 
Harold  Vickers  was  to  be  placed,  to  what  type  he 
belonged.  He  was  the  young  man  of  great  talentf 
who,  so  far  from  being  discovered  by  the  outside 
world,  had  not  even  discovered  himself.  He  would' 
be  in  two  minds  as  yet  about  his  calling  in  life, 
whether  it  was  to  be  the  hatching  of  fish  or  the  writ 
ing  of  "Last  Dryads."  No  one  had  yet  taken  him 
in  hand,  had  so  much  as  spoken  a  word  to  him.  If 
she  told  him  now  that  his  book  was  a  ridiculous  fail 
ure,  he  would  no  doubt  say — and  believe — that  she 
was  quite  right,  that  he  had  felt  as  much  himself. 
If  she  told  him  his  book  was  a  little  masterpiece,  he 
would  be  just  as  certain  to  tell  himself,  and  with 
equal  sincerity,  that  he  had  known  it  from  the  first. 

He  had  offered  his  manuscript  nowhere  else  as 
yet.  He  was  as  new  as  an  overnight  daisy,  and  as 
destructible  in  Rosella's  hands. 

'Yes,"  she  said  at  length,  "I  have  read  your  manu 
script."  She  paused  a  moment,  then:  "But  I  am  not 
quite  ready  to  pass  upon  it  yet." 

He  was  voluble  in  his  protestations. 

"Oh,  that  is  all  right,"  she  interrupted.  "I  can 
come  to  the  second  reading  in  a  day  or  two.  I  could 
send  you  word  by  the  end  of  the  week." 

"  Thank  you,  Miss  Beltis."  He  paused  awkwardly, 
smiling  in  deprecatory  fashion.  "  Do  you — from  what 
you  have  seen  of  it — read  of  it — do  you — how  does  it 
strike  you?  As  good  enough  to  publish — or  fit  for 
the  waste-basket?" 

Ah,  why  had  this  situation  leaped  upon  her  thus 
unawares,  and  all  unprepared!  Why  had  she  not 
been  allowed  time,  opportunity,  to  fortify  herself! 

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What  she  said  now  would  mean  so  much.  Best  err, 
then,  on  the  safe  side;  and  which  side  was  that? 
Her  words  seemed  to  come  of  themselves,  and  she 
almost  physically  felt  herself  withdraw  from  the 
responsibility  of  what  this  other  material  Rosella 
Beltis  was  saying. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  other  Rosella.  "  I  should 
not  care  to  say — so  soon.  You  see — there  are  so 
many  manuscripts.  I  generally  trust  to  the  first  im 
pression  on  the  second  reading."  She  did  not  even 
hear  his  answer,  but  she  said,  when  he  had  done 
speaking,  that  even  in  case  of  an  unfavorable  report 
there  were,  of  course,  other  publishers. 

But  he  answered  that  the  judgment  of  such  a  house 
as  the  Conants  would  suffice  for  him.  Somehow  he 
could  not  peddle  his  story  about  New  York.  If  the 
Conants  would  not  take  his  work,  nobody  would. 

And  that  was  the  last  remark  of  importance  he 
made.  During  the  few  remaining  moments  of  his 
visit  they  spoke  of  unessentials,  and  before  she  was 
aware,  he  had  gone  away,  leaving  with  her  a  memo 
randum  of  his  address  at  the  time. 

• ..    '  »         *         *         #         #         *         * 

She  did  not  sleep  that  night.  When  she  left  the 
office  she  brought  "The  Last  Dryad"  home  with  her, 
and  till  far  into  the  night  she  read  it  and  re-read  it, 
comparing  it  and  contrasting  it  with  "Patroclus," 
searching  diligently  if  perhaps  there  were  not  some 
minute  loophole  of  evasion,  some  devious  passage 
through  which  she  might  escape.  But  amid  the 
shattered  panes  of  her  glass  pavilion  the  block  of 
stone  persisted,  inert,  immovable.  The  stone  could 
not  be  raised,  the  little  edifice  could  not  be  rebuilt. 

232 


Then  at  last,  inevitably,  the  temptation  came — 
came  and  grew  and  shut  about  her  and  gripped  her 
close.  She  began  to  temporize,  to  advance  excuses. 
Was  not  her  story  the  better  one  ?  Granted  that  the 
idea  was  the  same,  was  not  the  treatment,  the  presen 
tation,  more  effective  ?  Should  not  the  fittest  survive  ? 
Was  it  not  right  that  the  public  should  have  the  better 
version?  Suppose  "Patroclus"  had  been  written  by 
a  third  person,  and  she  had  been  called  upon  to 
choose  between  it  and  "The  Last  Dryad,"  would 
she  not  have  taken  "Patroclus"  and  rejected  the 
other?  Ah,  but  "Patroclus"  was  not  yet  written! 
Well,  that  was  true.  But  the  draft  of  it  was;  the  idea 
of  it  had  been  conceived  eight  months  ago.  Perhaps 
she  had  thought  of  her  story  before  Vickers  had 
thought  of  his.  Perhaps  ?  No;  it  was  very  probable; 
there  was  no  doubt  of  it,  in  fa6t.  That  was  the  im 
portant  thing:  the  conception  of  the  idea,  not  the 
execution.  And  if  this  was  true,  her  claim  was  prior. 

But  what  would  Conant  say  of  such  reasoning, 
and  Trevor — would  they  approve?  Would  they 
agree  ? 

4  Yes,  they  would,"  she  cried  the  instant  the  thought 
occurred  to  her.  "Yes,  they  would,  they  would,  they 
would;  I  know  they  would.  I  am  sure  of  it;  sure  of 
it." 

But  she  knew  they  would  not.  The  idea  of  right 
persisted  and  persisted.  Rosella  was  on  the  rack, 
and  slowly,  inevitably,  resistlessly  the  temptation 
grew  and  gathered,  and  snared  her  feet  and  her  hands, 
and,  fold  on  fold,  lapped  around  her  like  a  veil. 

A  great  and  feminine  desire  to  shift  the  responsi 
bility  began  to  possess  her  mind. 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"I  cannot  help  it,"  she  cried.  "I  am  not  to  blame. 
It  is  all  very  well  to  preach,  but  how  would — any  one 
do  in  my  case?  It  is  not  my  fault." 

And  all  at  once,  without  knowing  how  or  why, 
she  found  that  she  had  written,  sealed,  stamped, 
and  addressed  a  note  to  Harold  Vickers  declining 
his  story. 

But  this  was  a  long  way  from  actually  rejecting 
"The  Last  Dryad"  —rejecting  it  in  favor  of  "Patro- 
clus."  She  had  only  written  the  note,  so  she  told 
herself,  just  to  see  how  the  words  would  look.  It 
was  merely  an  impulse;  would  come  to  nothing,  of 
course.  Let  us  put  it  aside,  that  note,  and  seriously 
consider  this  trying  situation. 

Somehow  it  seemed  less  trying  now;  somehow  the 
facl  of  her  distress  seemed  less  poignant.  There  was 
a  way  out  of  it — stop.  No;  do  not  look  at  the  note 
there  on  the  table.  There  was  a  way  out,  no  doubt, 
but  not  that  one ;  no,  of  course  not  that  one.  Rosella 
laughed  a  little.  How  easily  some  one  else,  less 
scrupulous,  would  solve  this  problem!  Well,  she 
could  solve  it,  too,  and  keep  her  scruples  as  well; 
but  not  tonight.  Now  she  was  worn  out.  Tomorrow 
it  would  look  different  to  her. 

She  went  to  bed  and  tossed  wide-eyed  and  wakeful 
till  morning,  then  rose,  and  after  breakfast  prepared 
to  go  to  the  office  as  usual.  The  manuscript  of  "The 
Last  Dryad"  lay  on  her  table,  and  while  she  was 
wrapping  it  up  her  eye  fell  upon  the  note  to  Harold 
Vickers. 

"Why,"  she  murmured,  with  a  little  grimace  of 
astonishment — "why,  how  is  this?  I  thought  I 
burned  that  last  night.  How  could  I  have  forgotten!" 

234 


She  could  have  burned  it  then.  The  fire  was  crack 
ling  in  the  grate;  she  had  but  to  toss  it  in.  But  she 
preferred  to  delay. 

"I  will  drop  it  in  some  ash-can  or  down  some  sewer 
on  the  way  to  the  office,"  she  said  to  herself.  She 
slipped  it  into  her  muff  and  hurried  away.  But  on 
the  way  to  the  cable-car  no  ash-can  presented  itself. 
True,  she  discovered  the  opening  of  a  sewer  on  the 
corner  where  she  took  her  car.  But  a  milkman  and 
a  police  officer  stood  near  at  hand  in  conversation, 
occasionally  glancing  at  her,  and  no  doubt  they  would 
have  thought  it  strange  to  see  this  well-dressed  young 
woman  furtively  dropping  a  sealed  letter  into  a 
sewer-vent. 

She  held  it  awkwardly  in  her  hand  all  of  her  way 
down-town,  and  still  carried  it  there  when  she  had 
descended  from  her  car  and  took  her  way  up  the  cross- 
street  toward  Conant's. 

She  suddenly  remembered  that  she  had  other  let 
ters  to  mail  that  morning.  For  two  days  the  weekly 
epistles  that  she  wrote  home  to  her  mother  and 
younger  sister  had  been  overlooked  in  her  pocket. 
She  found  a  mail-box  on  the  corner  by  the  Conant 
building  and  crossed  over  to  it,  holding  her  mother's 
and  sister's  letters  in  one  hand  and  the  note  to  Vickers 
in  the  other. 

Carefully  scanning  the  addresses,  to  make  sure 
she  did  not  confuse  the  letters,  she  dropped  in  her 
home  correspondence,  then  stood  there  a  moment 
irresolute. 

Irresolute  as  to  what,  she  could  not  say.  Her  de 
cision  had  been  taken  in  the  matter  of  "The  Last 
Dryad."  She  would  accept  it,  as  it  deserved.  Whether 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


she  was  still  to  write  "Patroclus"  was  a  matter  to  be 
considered  later.  Well,  she  was  glad  she  had  settled 
it  all.  If  she  had  not  come  to  this  conclusion  she 
might  have  been,  at  that  very  instant,  dropping  the 
letter  to  Harold  Vickers  into  the  box.  She  would 
have  stood,  thus,  facing  the  box,  have  raised  the  cast- 
iron  flap, — this  with  one  hand, — and  with  the  other 
have  thrust  the  note  into  the  slide — thus. 

Her  fingers  closed  hard  upon  the  letter  at  the  very 
last  instant — ah,  not  too  late.  But  suppose  she  had, 
but  for  one  second,  opened  her  thumb  and  forefinger 
and — what?  What  would  come  of  it? 

And  there,  with  the  letter  yet  on  the  edge  of  the 
drop  she  called  up  again  the  entire  situation,  the 
identity  of  the  stories,  the  jeopardizing — no,  the 
wrecking — of  her  future  career  by  this  chance- 
thrown  barrier  in  the  way.  Why  hesitate,  why  pro 
crastinate?  Her  thoughts  came  to  her  in  a  whirl. 
If  she  a6led  quickly  now, — took  the  leap  with  shut 
eyes,  reckless  of  result, — she  could  truly  be  sorry 
then,  truly  acknowledge  what  was  right,  believe  that 
Vickers  had  the  prior  claim  without  the  hard  neces 
sity  of  a6ling  up  to  her  convictions.  At  least,  this 
harrowing  indecision  would  be  over  with. 

"Indecision?"  What  was  this  she  was  saying? 
Had  she  not  this  moment  told  herself  that  she  was 
resolved — resolved  to  accept  "The  Last  Dryad"? 
Resolved  to  accept  it?  Was  that  true?  Had  she 
done  so?  Had  she  not  made  up  her  mind  long  ago 
to  decline  it — decline  it  with  full  knowledge  that  its 
author  would  destroy  it  once  the  manuscript  should 
be  returned? 

These  thoughts   had  whisked  through   her  mind 

236 


with  immeasurable  rapidity.  The  letter  still  rested 
half  in,  half  out  of  the  drop.  She  still  held  it  there. 

By  now  Rosella  knew  if  she  let  it  fall  she  would  do 
so  deliberately,  with  full  knowledge  of  what  she  was 
about.  She  could  not  afterward  excuse  herself  by 
saying  that  she  had  been  confused,  excited,  acting 
upon  an  unreasoned  impulse.  No;  it  would  be  de 
liberate,  deliberate,  deliberate.  She  would  have  to 
live  up  to  that  decision,  whatever  it  was,  for  many 
months  to  come,  perhaps  for  years.  Perhaps, — who 
could  say?— perhaps  it  might  affect  her  character 
permanently.  In  a  crisis  little  forces  are  important, 
disproportionately  so.  And  then  it  was,  and  thus  it 
was,  that  Rosella  took  her  resolve.  She  raised  the 
iron  flap  once  more,  and  saying  aloud  and  with  a 
ring  of  defiance  in  her  voice:  "Deliberately,  deliber 
ately;  I  don't  care,"  loosed  her  hold  upon  the  letter. 
She  heard  it  fall  with  a  soft  rustling  impact  upon  the 
accumulated  mail-matter  in  the  bottom  of  the  box. 

A  week  later  she  received  her  letter  back  with  a 
stamped  legend  across  its  face  informing  her  with 
dreadful  terseness  that  the  party  to  whom  the  letter 
was  addressed  was  deceased.  She  divined  a  blunder, 
but  for  all  that,  and  with  conflicting  emotions, 
sought  confirmation  in  the  daily  press.  There,  at 
the  very  end  of  the  column,  stood  the  notice: 

VICKERS.  At  New  York,  on  Sunday,  November  12,  Harold  Anderson 
Vickers,  in  the  twenty-third  year  of  his  age.  Arizona  papers  please  copy. 
Notice  of  funeral  hereafter. 

Three  days  later  she  began  to  wTrite  "Patroclus." 

#         #         #         #         # 

Rosella  stood  upon  the  door-step  of  Trevor's  house, 
closing  her  umbrella  and  shaking  the  water  from  the 

237 


TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


folds  of  her  mackintosh.  It  was  between  eight  and 
nine  in  the  evening,  and  since  morning  a  fine  rain 
had  fallen  steadily.  But  no  stress  of  weather  could 
have  kept  Rosella  at  home  that  evening.  A  week 
previous  she  had  sent  to  Trevor  the  type-written 
copy  of  the  completed  "Patroclus,"  and  tonight  she 
was  to  call  for  the  manuscript  and  listen  to  his  sug 
gestions  and  advice. 

She  had  triumphed  in  the  end — triumphed  over 
what,  she  had  not  always  cared  to  inquire.  But  once 
the  pen  in  her  hand,  once  "Patroclus"  begun,  and 
the  absorption  of  her  mind,  her  imagination,  her 
every  faculty,  in  the  composition  of  the  story,  had 
not  permitted  her  to  think  of  or  to  remember  anything 
else. 

And  she  saw  that  her  work  was  good.  She  had 
tested  it  by  every  method,  held  it  up  to  her  judgment 
in  all  positions  and  from  all  sides,  and  in  her  mind, 
so  far  as  she  could  see,  and  she  was  a  harsh  critic  for 
her  own  work,  it  stood  the  tests.  Not  the  least  of  her 
joys  was  the  pleasure  that  she  knew  Trevor  would 
take  in  her  success.  She  could  foresee  just  the  ex 
pression  of  his  face  when  he  would  speak,  could  fore 
cast  just  the  tones  of  the  voice,  the  twinkle  of  the 
kindly  eyes  behind  the  glasses. 

When  she  entered  the  study,  she  found  Trevor 
himself,  as  she  had  expedled,  waiting  for  her  in  slip 
pers  and  worn  velvet  jacket,  pipe  in  hand,  and  silk 
skullcap  awry  upon  the  silver-white  hair.  He  ex 
tended  an  inky  hand,  and  still  holding  it  and  talking, 
led  her  to  an  easy-chair  near  the  hearth. 

Even  through  the  perturbation  of  her  mind  Ro 
sella  could  not  but  wonder — for  the  hundredth  time — 

238 


at  the  apparent  discrepancy  between  the  great 
novelist  and  the  nature  of  his  books.  These  latter 
were,  each  and  all  of  them,  wonders  of  artistic  com 
position,  compared  with  the  hordes  of  latter-day 
pictures.  They  were  the  aristocrats  of  their  kind, 
full  of  reserved  force,  unimpeachable  in  dignity, 
stately  even,  at  times  veritably  austere. 

And  Trevor  himself  was  a  short,  rotund  man, 
rubicund  as  to  face,  bourgeois  as  to  clothes  and  sur 
roundings  (the  bisque  statuette  of  a  fisher-boy  ob 
truded  the  vulgarity  of  its  gilding  and  tinting  from 
the  mantelpiece),  jovial  in  manner,  indulging  even 
in  slang.  One  might  easily  have  set  him  down  as  a 
retired  groceryman — wholesale  perhaps,  but  none 
the  less  a  groceryman.  Yet  touch  him  upon  the  sub 
ject  of  his  profession,  and  the  bonhomie  lapsed  away 
from  him  at  once.  Then  he  became  serious.  Lit 
erature  was  not  a  thing  to  be  trifled  with. 

Thus  it  was  tonight.  For  five  minutes  Trevor 
filled  the  room  with  the  roaring  of  his  own  laughter 
and  the  echoes  of  his  own  vociferous  voice.  He  was 
telling  a  story — a  funny  story,  about  what  Rosella, 
with  her  thoughts  on  "Patroclus,"  could  not  for  the 
life  of  her  have  said,  and  she  must  needs  listen  in 
patience  and  with  perfunctory  merriment  while  the 
narrative  was  conducted  to  its  close  with  all  the  ac 
companiment  of  stamped  feet  and  slapped  knees. 

"'Why,  becoth,  mithtah,'  said  that  nigger.  'Dat 
dawg  ain'  good  fo'  nothin'  ailse;  so  I  jes  rickon 
he  'th  boun'  to  be  a  coon  dawg;'"  and  the  author  of 
"Snow  in  April"  pounded  the  arm  of  his  chair  and 
roared  till  the  gas-fixtures  vibrated. 

Then  at  last,  taking  advantage  of  a  lull  in  the  talk, 

239 


Fiction 


Rosella,  unable  to  contain  her  patience  longer,  found 
breath  to  remark: 

"And  'Patroclus'— my— my  little  book?" 

"Ah — hum,  yes.  'Patroclus,'  your  story.  I've 
read  it." 

At  once  another  man  was  before  her,  or  rather  the 
writer — the  novelist — in  the  man.  Something  of  the 
dignity  of  his  literary  style  immediately  seemed  to 
invest  him  with  a  new  character.  He  fell  quiet,  grave, 
not  a  little  abstracted,  and  Rosella  felt  her  heart  sink. 
Her  little  book  (never  had  it  seemed  so  insignificant, 
so  presumptuous  as  now)  had  been  on  trial  before  a 
relentless  tribunal,  had  indeed  undergone  the  ordeal 
of  fire.  But  the  verdict,  the  verdict!  Quietly,  but 
with  cold  hands  clasped  tight  together,  she  listened 
while  the  greatest  novelist  of  America  passed  judg 
ment  upon  her  effort. 

'Yes;  I've  read  it,"  continued  Trevor.  "Read  it 
carefully — carefully.  You  have  worked  hard  upon 
it.  I  can  see  that.  You  have  put  your  whole  soul 
into  it,  put  all  of  yourself  into  it.  The  narrative  is  all 
there,  and  I  have  nothing  but  good  words  to  say  to 
you  about  the  construction,  the  mere  mechanics  of 
it.  But- 

Would  he  never  go  on  ?  What  was  this  ?  What 
did  that  "But"  mean  ?  What  else  but  disaster  could 
it  mean  ?  Rosella  shut  her  teeth. 

"  But,  to  speak  frankly,  my  dear  girl,  there  is  some 
thing  lacking.  Oh,  the  idea,  the  motif — that 

he  held  up  a  hand.  "That  is  as  intact  as  when 
you  read  me  the  draft.  The  central  theme,  the  ap 
proach,  the  grouping  of  the  characters,  the  dialogue — 
all  good — all  good.  The  thing  that  is  lacking  I 

240 


find  very  hard  to  define.  But  the  mood  of  the  story, 
shall  we  say? — the  mood  of  the  story  is—  he 

stopped,  frowning  in  perplexity,  hesitating.  The 
great  master  of  words  for  once  found  himself  at  a 
loss  for  expression.  "The  mood  is  somehow  trucu 
lent,  when  it  should  be  as  suave,  as  quiet,  as  the  very 
river  you  describe.  Don't  you  see?  Can't  you  un 
derstand  what  I  mean  ?  In  this  *  Patroclus '  the  atmos 
phere,  the  little,  delicate,  subtle  sentiment,  is  every 
thing — everything.  What  was  the  mere  story  ?  Noth 
ing  without  the  proper  treatment.  And  it  was  just 
in  this  fine,  intimate  relationship  between  theme  and 
treatment  that  the  success  of  the  book  was  to  be 
looked  for.  I  thought  I  could  be  sure  of  you  there. 
I  thought  that  you  of  all  people  could  work  out  that 
motif  adequately.  But" —  he  waved  a  hand  over 
the  manuscript  that  lay  at  her  elbow — "this — it  is 
not  the  thing.  This  is  a  poor  criticism,  you  will  say, 
merely  a  marshaling  of  empty  phrases,  abstractions. 
Well,  that  may  be;  I  repeat,  it  is  very  hard  for  me 
to  define  just  what  there  is  of  failure  in  your  '  Patro 
clus.'  But  it  is  empty,  dry,  hard,  barren.  Am  I 
cruel  to  speak  so  frankly?  If  I  were  less  frank,  my 
dear  girl,  I  would  be  less  just,  less  kind.  You  have 
told  merely  the  story,  have  narrated  episodes  in 
their  sequence  of  time,  and  where  the  episodes  have 
stopped  there  you  have  ended  the  book.  The  whole 
animus  that  should  have  put  the  life  into  it  is  gone, 
or,  if  it  is  not  gone,  it  is  so  perverted  that  it  is  incor 
rigible.  To  my  mind  the  book  is  a  failure." 

Rosella  did  not  answer  when  Trevor  ceased  speak 
ing,  and  there  was  a  long  silence.  Trevor  looked  at 
her  anxiously.  He  had  hated  to  hurt  her.  Rosella 

241 


°f  Fiction 


gazed  vaguely  at  the  fire.     Then  at  last  the  tears 
filled  her  eyes. 

*  I  am  sorry,  very,  very  sorry,"  said  Trevor,  kindly. 
"But  to  have  told  you  anything  but  the  truth  would 
have  done  you  a  wrong — and,  then,  no  earnest  work 
is  altogether  wasted.  Even  though  'Patroclus'  is— 
not  what  we  expected  of  it,  your  effort  over  it  will 
help  you  in  something  else.  You  did  work  hard  at 
it.  I  saw  that.  You  must  have  put  your  whole  soul 
into  it." 

"That,"  said  Rosella,  speaking  half  to  herself — 
"that  was  just  the  trouble." 

But  Trevor  did  not  understand. 


242 


HANTU 

BY 

HENRY  MILNER  RIDEOUT 


/a 

i 


Reprinted  from  The  Atlantic  Monthly  of  May,  1906 
by  permission 


HANTU 

HE  SCHOONER  Fulmar  lay  in  a 
cove  on  the  coast  of  Band  a.  Her 
sails,  half  hoisted,  dripped  still  from 
an  equatorial  shower,  but,  aloft,  were 
already  steaming  in  the  afternoon 
glare.  Dr.  Forsythe,  captain  and 
owner,  lay  curled  round  his  teacup  on  the  cabin  roof, 
watching  the  horizon  thoughtfully,  with  eyes  like 
points  of  glass  set  in  the  puckered  bronze  of  his  face. 
The  "Seventh  Officer,"  his  only  white  companion, 
watched  him  respectfully.  All  the  Malays  were 
asleep,  stretched  prone  or  supine  under  the  forward 
awning.  Only  Wing  Kat  stirred  in  the  smother  of 
his  galley  below,  rattling  tin  dishes,  and  repeating, 
in  endless  falsetto  singsong,  the  Hankow  ditty  which 
begins, — 

'Yaou-yaou!'  remarked  the  grasshoppers." 

Ashore,  the  coolies  on  the  nutmeg  plantations  had 
already  brought  out  their  mace  to  dry,  and  the 
baskets  lay  in  vermilion  patches  on  the  sun-smitten 
green,  like  gouts  of  arterial  blood.  White  vapors 
round  the  mountain  peaks  rose  tortuously  toward 
the  blue ;  while  seaward,  rain  still  filled  the  air  as  with 
black  sand  drifting  down  aslant,  through  gaps  in 

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which  we  could  descry  far  off  a  steel-bright  strip  of 
fair  weather  that  joined  sea  and  sky,  cutting  under 
a  fairy  island  so  that  it  seemed  suspended  in  the  air. 

"That's  a  pretty  bit  of  land,"  said  the  doctor 
lazily.  "'Jam  media  apparet  fluctu  nemorosa  Zacyn- 
thos.'  It  might  be,  eh  ? — Humph ! — Virgil  and  Shake 
speare  are  the  only  ones  who  sometimes  make  poetry 
endurable.  All  the  others  are  just  little  swollen 
Egos." 

This  was  an  unusual  excursion,  and  he  quickly 
returned  to  practical  matters. 

"There's  a  better  anchorage  over  there,"  he 
drawled,  waving  the  milk-tin  toward  Zacynthos. 
"And  less  danger  of  our  being  caught  than  here. 
But  no  use;  we've  got  to  humor  the  crew,  of  course. 
When  they  say  'pulo  burrantu?  that  settles  it. 
Haunted  islands — ghosts — fatal  to  discipline.  I  used 
to  have  cruises  spoiled  by  that  sort  of  thing.  We 
must  stay  here  and  chance  being  found." 

He  shot  a  stream  of  Java  sugar  into  the  tea,  and, 
staring  at  the  sleepers,  rubbed  his  shaven  head 
thoughtfully. 

"Oh,  yes,  'superstition,'  all  very  easy  to  say,"  he 
muttered,  half  to  himself.  "But  who  knows,  eh? 
Must  be  something  in  it,  at  times." 

His  mood  this  afternoon  was  new  and  surprising. 
Nor  was  it  likely  to  occur  often  in  such  a  man.  He 
had  brought  the  Fulmar  round  the  south  of  Celebes, 
making  for  Ceram;  but  as  the  Dutch  had  forbidden 
him  to  travel  in  the  interior,  saying  that  the  natives 
were  too  dangerous  just  then ;  and  as  Sidin,  the  mate, 
had  sighted  the  Dutch  tricolor  flying  above  drab 
hulls  that  came  nosing  southward  from  Amboina  way, 

246 


we  had  dodged  behind  the  Bandas  till  nightfall. 
The  crew  laughed  at  the  babi  blanda — Dutch  pigs; 
but  every  man  of  them  would  have  fled  ashore  had 
they  known  that  among  the  hampers  and  bundled 
spears  in  our  hold  lay  the  dried  head  of  a  little  girl, 
a  human  sacrifice  from  Engano.  If  we  got  into 
Ceram  (and  got  out  again),  the  doctor  would  reduce 
the  whole  affair  to  a  few  tables  of  anthropological 
measurements,  a  few  more  hampers  of  birds,  beasts, 
and  native  rubbish  in  the  hold,  and  a  score  of  para 
graphs  couched  in  the  evaporated,  millimetric  terms 
of  science.  There  would  be  a  few  duplicates  for 
Raffles,  some  tin-lined  cases,  including  the  clotted 
head  of  the  little  girl,  for  the  British  Museum;  the 
total  upshot  would  attract  much  less  public  notice 
than  the  invention  of  a  new  "part"  for  a  motor  car; 
and  the  august  stru6lure  of  science,  like  a  coral  tree, 
would  increase  by  another  atom.  In  the  meantime, 
we  lay  anchored,  avoiding  ironclads  and  ghosts. 

Dinner  we  ate  below,  with  seaward  port-holes 
blinded,  and  sweat  dripping  from  our  chins.  Then 
we  lay  on  the  cabin  roof  again,  in  breech-clouts, 
waiting  for  a  breeze,  and  showing  no  light  except 
the  red  coals  of  two  Burmah  cheroots. 

For  long  spaces  we  said  nothing.  Trilling  of 
crickets  ashore,  sleepy  cooing  of  nutmeg-pigeons, 
chatter  of  monkeys,  hiccough  of  tree  lizards,  were  as 
nothing  in  the  immense,  starlit  silence  of  the  night, 
heavily  sweet  with  cassia  and  mace.  Forward,  the 
Malays  murmured  now  and  then,  in  sentences  of 
monotonous  cadence. 

"No,  you  can't  blame  them,"  said  the  captain 
abruptly,  with  decision.  "Considering  the  unholy 

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strangeness  of  the  world  we  live  in—  He  puffed 

twice,  the  palm  of  his  hand  glowing.  "Things  you 
can't  explain,"  he  continued  vaguely.  "Now  this, — i 
I  thought  of  it  today,  speaking  of  hantu.  Perhaps) 
you  can  explain  it,  being  a  youngster  without  theo-| 
ries.  The  point  is,  of  what  follows,  how  much,  if 
any,  was  a  dream?  Where  were  the  partition  lines 
between  sleep  and  waking, — between  what  we  call 
Certainty,  and — the  other  thing  ?  Or  else,  by  a  freak 
of  nature,  might  a  man  live  so  long — Nonsense!— 
Never  mind;  here  are  the  facts." 

Eleven  years  ago,  I  had  the  Fulmar  a  ten  months' 
cruise  out  of  Singapore,  and  was  finally  coming  down 
along  Celebes,  intending  to  go  over  to  Batavia.  We 
anchored  on  just  such  a  day  as  this  has  been, 
off  a  little  old  river-mouth,  so  badly  silted  that 
she  had  to  lie  well  out.  A  chief  in  a  campong  half  a 
day  inland  had  promised  to  send  some  specimens 
down  that  evening, — armor,  harps,  stone  Priapuses, 
and  birds  of  paradise.  The  men  were  to  come  over 
land,  and  would  have  no  boats.  So  I  went  ashore 
with  three  or  four  Malays,  and  the  Old  Boy's  time 
we  had  poking  in  and  out  over  the  silt  to  find  fairway, 
even  for  the  gig.  At  last  we  could  make  round  toward 
a  little  clearing  in  the  bamboos,  with  a  big  canary 
tree  in  the  middle.  All  was  going  well,  when  sud 
denly  the  mate  grunted,  pointing  dead  ahead.  That 
man  Sidin  has  the  most  magnificent  eyes:  we  were 
steering  straight  into  a  dazzling  glare.  I  couldn't  see 
anything,  neither  could  the  crew,  for  some  time. 

"  Tuggur!"  cried  the  mate.  He  was  getting 
nervous.  Then  all  of  a  sudden — "  Brenti!" 

248 


The  crew  stopped  like  a  shot.  Then  they  saw,  too, 
and  began  to  back  water  and  turn,  all  pulling  dif 
ferent  ways  and  yelling:  " Prau  hantu!  .  .  .  sampar! 
.  .  .  Sakit  lepra!  Kolera!  .  .  .  hantu!" 

As  we  swung,  I  saw  what  it  was, — a  little  carved 
prau  like  a  child's  toy  boat,  perhaps  four  feet  long, 
with  red  fiber  sails  and  red  and  gilt  flags  from  stem 
to  stern.  It  was  rocking  there  in  our  swell,  innocently, 
but  the  crew  were  pulling  for  the  schooner  like  crazy 
men. 

I  was  griffin  enough  at  the  time,  but  I  knew  what 
it  meant,  of  course, — it  was  an  enchanted  boat,  that 
the  priests  in  some  village — perhaps  clear  over  in 
New  Guinea — had  charmed  the  cholera  or  the  plague 
on  board  of.  Same  idea  as  the  Hebrew  scapegoat. 

"Brenti!"  I  shouted.  The  Malays  stopped  row 
ing,  but  let  her  run.  Nothing  would  have  tempted 
them  within  oar's-length  of  that  prau. 

"See  here,  Sidin,"  I  protested,  "I  go  ashore  to 
meet  the  kapalas  men." 

"We  do  not  go,"  the  fellow  said.  "If  you  go, 
Tuan,  you  die:  the  priest  has  laid  the  cholera  on 
board  that  prau.  It  has  come  to  this  shore.  Do  not 
go,  Tuan." 

"She  hasn't  touched  the  land  yet,"  I  said. 

This  seemed  to  have  effect. 

"Row  me  round  to  that  point  and  land  me,"  I 
ordered.  "Hantu  does  not  come  to  white  men. 
You  go  out  to  the  ship;  when  I  have  met  the  soldier- 
messengers,  row  back,  and  take  me  on  board  with 
the  gifts." 

The  mate  persuaded  them,  and  they  landed  me 
on  the  point,  half  a  mile  away,  with  a  box  of  cheroots, 

249 


and  a  roll  of  matting  to  take  my  nap  on.  I  walked 
round  to  the  clearing,  and  spread  my  mat  under  the 
canary  tree,  close  to  the  shore.  All  that  blessed  after 
noon  I  waited,  and  smoked,  and  killed  a  snake,  and 
made  notes  in  a  pocket  Virgil,  and  slept,  and  smoked 
again;  but  no  sign  of  the  bearers  from  the  campong. 
I  made  signals  to  the  schooner, — she  was  too  far  out 
to  hail, — but  the  crew  took  no  notice.  It  was  plain 
they  meant  to  wait  and  see  whether  the  hantu  prau 
went  out  with  the  ebb  or  not;  and  as  it  was  then  flood, 
and  dusk,  they  couldn't  see  before  morning.  So  I 
picked  some  bananas  and  chicos,  and  made  a  dinner 
of  them ;  then  I  lighted  a  fire  under  the  tree,  to  smoke 
and  read  Virgil  by, — in  fact,  spent  the  evening  over 
my  notes.  That  editor  was  a  pukkah  ass!  It  must 
have  been  pretty  late  before  I  stretched  out  on  my 
matting. 

I  was  a  long  time  going  to  sleep, — if  I  went  to  sleep 
at  all.  I  lay  and  watched  the  firelight  and  shadows 
in  the  lianas,  the  bats  fluttering  in  and  out  across  my 
patch  of  stars,  and  an  ape  that  stole  down  from  time 
to  time  and  peered  at  me,  sticking  his  blue  face  out 
from  among  the  creepers.  At  one  time  a  shower  fell 
in  the  clearing,  but  only  pattered  on  my  ceiling  of 
broad  leaves. 

After  a  period  of  drowsiness,  something  moved 
and  glittered  on  the  water,  close  to  the  bank;  and 
there  bobbed  the  ghost  prau,  the  gilt  and  vermilion 
flags  shining  in  the  firelight.  She  had  come  clear  in 
on  the  flood, — a  piece  of  luck.  I  got  up,  cut  a  withe 
of  bamboo,  and  made  her  fast  to  a  root.  Then  I 
fed  the  fire,  lay  down  again,  and  watched  her  back 
and  fill  on  her  tether, — all  clear  and  ruddy  in  the 

250 


flame,  even  the  carvings,  and  the  little  wooden  figures 
of  wizards  on  her  deck.  And  while  I  looked,  I  grew 
drowsier  and  drowsier;  my  eyes  would  close,  then  half 
open,  and  there  would  be  the  hantu  sails  and  the 
fire  for  company,  growing  more  and  more  indistinct. 
So  much  for  Certainty;  now  begins  the  Other. 
Did  I  fall  asleep  at  all?  If  so,  was  my  first  waking 
a  dream-waking,  and  the  real  one  only  when  the 
thing  was  gone?  I'm  not  an  imaginative  man;  my 
mind,  at  home,  usually  worked  with  some  precision; 
but  this, — there  seems  to  be,  you  might  say,  a  blur, 
a — film  over  my  mental  retina.  You  see,  I'm  not  a 
psychologist,  and  therefore  can't  use  the  big,  foggy 
terms  of  man's  conceit  to  explain  what  he  never  can 
explain, — himself,  and  Life. 

The  captain  tossed  his  cheroot  overboard,  and  was 
silent  for  a  space. 

"The  psychologists  forget  ^Esop's  frog  story,"  he 
said  at  last.  "Little  swollen  Egos,  again." 

Then  his  voice  flowed  on,  slowly,  in  the  dark. 

I  ask  you  just  to  believe  this  much:  that  I  for  my 
part  feel  sure  (except  sometimes  by  daylight)  that 
I  was  not  more  than  half  asleep  when  a  footfall 
seemed  to  come  in  the  path,  and  waked  me  entirely. 
It  didn't  sound, — only  seemed  to  come.  I  believe, 
then,  that  I  woke,  roused  up  on  my  elbow,  and  stared 
over  at  the  opening  among  the  bamboos  where  the 
path  came  into  the  clearing.  Some  one  moved  down 
the  bank,  and  drew  slowly  forward  to  the  edge  of  the 
firelight.  A  strange,  whispering,  uncertain  kind  of 
voice  said  something, — something  in  Dutch. 

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I  didn't  catch  the  words,  and  it  spoke  again: — 

"What  night  of  the  month  is  this  night?" 

If  awake,  I  was  just  enough  so  to  think  this  a 
natural  question  to  be  asked  first  off,  out  here  in  the 
wilds. 

"  It's  the  6th,"  I  answered  in  Dutch.  "  Come  down 
to  the  fire,  Mynheer." 

You  know  how  bleary  and  sightless  your  eyes  are 
for  a  moment,  waking,  after  the  glare  of  these  days. 
The  figure  seemed  to  come  a  little  nearer,  but  I 
could  only  see  that  it  was  a  man  dressed  in  black. 
Even  that  didn't  seem  odd. 

"Of  what  month?"  the  stranger  said.  The  voice 
was  what  the  French  call  "veiled." 

"June,"  I  answered. 

"And  what  year?"  he  asked. 

I  told  him — or  It. 

"He  is  very  late,"  said  the  voice,  like  a  sigh.  "He 
should  have  sent  long  ago." 

Only  at  this  point  did  the  whole  thing  begin  to 
seem  queer.  As  evidence  that  I  must  have  been 
awake,  I  recalled  afterwards  that  my  arm  had  been 
made  numb  by  the  pressure  of  my  head  upon  it  while 
lying  down,  and  now  began  to  tingle. 

"It  is  very  late,"  the  voice  repeated.  "Perhaps 
too  late- 

The  fire  settled,  flared  up  fresh,  and  lighted  the 
man's  face  dimly, — a  long,  pale  face  with  gray 
mustache  and  pointed  beard.  He  was  all  in  black, 
so  that  his  outline  was  lost  in  darkness;  but  I  saw 
that  round  his  neck  was  a  short  white  ruff,  and  that 
heavy  leather  boots  hung  in  folds,  cavalier-fashion, 
from  his  knees.  He  wavered  there  in  the  dark, 

252 


V. 


"Hantu" 


against  the  flicker  of  the  bamboo  shadows,  like  a 
picture  by  that  Dutch  fellow — WhatVhis-name- 
again — a  very  dim,  shaky,  misty  Rembrandt. 

"And  you,  Mynheer,"  he  went  on,  in  the  same 
toneless  voice,  "from  where  do  you  come  to  this 
shore?" 

"From  Singapore,"  I  managed  to  reply. 

"From  Singapura,"  he  murmured.  "And  so 
white  men  live  there  now  ? — Ja,  ja,  time  has  passed." 

Up  till  now  I  may  have  only  been  startled,  but 
this  set  me  in  a  blue  funk.  It  struck  me  all  at  once 
that  this  shaky  old  whisper  of  a  voice  was  not  speak 
ing  the  Dutch  of  nowadays.  I  never  before  knew 
the  depths,  the  essence,  of  that  uncertainty  which 
we  call  fear  In  the  silence,  I  thought  a  drum  was 
beating, — it  was  the  pulse  in  my  ears.  The  fire 
close  by  was  suddenly  cold. 

"And  now  you  go  whither?"  it  said. 

"To  Batavia,"  I  must  have  answered,  for  it  went 
on: — 

"Then  you  may  do  a  great  service  to  me  and  to 
another.  Go  to  Jacatra  in  Batavia,  and  ask  for 
Pieter  Erberveld.  Hendrik  van  der  Have  tells  him 
to  cease — before  it  is  too  late,  before  the  thing  be 
comes  accursed.  Tell  him  this.  You  will  have  done 
well,  and  I — shall  sleep  again.  Give  him  the  mes 
sage 

The  voice  did  not  stop,  so  much  as  fade  away  un 
finished.  And  the  man,  the  appearance,  the  eyes, 
moved  away  further  into  the  dark,  dissolving,  re 
treating.  A  shock  like  waking  came  over  me — a 
rush  of  clear  consciousness— 

Humph!     Yes,  been  too  long  away  from  home; 

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for  I  know  (mind  you,  know)  that  I  saw  the  white  of 
that  ruff,  the  shadowy  sweep  of  a  cloak,  as  something 
turned  its  back  and  moved  up  the  path  under  the 
pointed  arch  of  bamboos,  and  was  gone  slowly  in 
the  blackness.  I'm  as  sure  of  this  as  I  am  that  the 
fire  gave  no  heat.  But  whether  the  time  of  it  all  had 
been  seconds  or  hours,  I  can't  tell  you. 

What?  Yes,  naturally.  I  jumped  and  ran  up 
the  path  after  it.  Nothing  there  but  starlight.  I 
must  have  gone  on  for  half  a  mile.  Nothing:  only 
ahead  of  me,  along  the  path,  the  monkeys  would 
chatter  and  break  into  an  uproar,  and  then  stop 
short — every  treetop  silent,  as  they  do  when  a  python 
comes  along.  I  went  back  to  the  clearing,  sat  down 
on  the  mat,  stayed  there  by  clinching  my  will  power, 
so  to  speak, — and  watched  myself  for  other  symp 
toms,  till  morning.  None  came.  The  fire,  when  I 
heaped  it,  was  as  hot  as  any  could  be.  By  dawn  I 
had  persuaded  myself  that  it  was  a  dream.  No  foot 
prints  in  the  path,  though  I  mentioned  a  shower 
before. 

At  sunrise,  the  kapala's  men  came  down  the  path, 
little  chaps  in  black  mediaeval  armor  made  of  pe 
troleum  tins,  and  coolies  carrying  piculs  of  stuff  that 
I  wanted.  So  I  was  busy, — but  managed  to  dismast 
the  hantu  prau  and  wrap  it  up  in  matting,  so  that  it 
went  aboard  with  the  plunder. 

Yet  this  other  thing  bothered  me  so  that  I  held 
the  schooner  over,  and  made  pretexts  to  stay  ashore 
two  more  nights.  Nothing  happened.  Then  I  called 
myself  a  grandmother,  and  sailed  for  Batavia. 

Two  nights  later,  a  very  singular  thing  happened. 
The  mate — this  one  with  the  sharp  eyes — is  a  quiet 

254 


chap;  seldom  speaks  to  me  except  on  business.  He 
was  standing  aft  that  evening,  and  suddenly,  with 
out  any  preliminaries,  said: 

"Tuan  was  not  alone  the  other  night." 

"What's  that,  Sidin?"  I  spoke  sharply,  for  it 
made  me  feel  quite  angry  and  upset,  of  a  sudden. 
He  laughed  a  little,  softly. 

"I  saw  that  the  fire  was  a  cold  fire,"  he  said.  That 
was  all  he  would  say,  and  we've  never  referred  to  it 
again. 

You  may  guess  the  rest,  if  you  know  your  history 
of  Java.  I  didn't  then,  and  didn't  even  know  Ba- 
tavia, — had  been  ashore  often,  but  only  for  a  toelat- 
ingskaart  and  some  good  Dutch  chow.  Well,  one 
afternoon,  I  was  loafing  down  a  street,  and  sud 
denly  noticed  that  the  sign-board  said,  "  Jacatra- 
weg."  The  word  made  me  jump,  and  brought  the 
whole  affair  on  Celebes  back  like  a  shot, — and  not 
as  a  dream.  It  became  a  live  question;  I  determined 
to  treat  it  as  one,  and  settle  it. 

I  stopped  a  fat  Dutchman  who  was  paddling  down 
the  middle  of  the  street  in  his  pyjamas,  smoking  a 
cigar. 

"Pardon,  Mynheer,"  I  said.  "Does  a  man  live 
here  in  Jacatra-weg  named  Erberveld?" 

"Nej,"  he  shook  his  big  shaved  head.  "Nej, 
Mynheer,  I  do  not  know." 

"Pieter  Erberveld,"  I  suggested. 

The  man  broke  into  a  horse-laugh. 

"  Ja,  y'a,"  he  said,  and  laughed  still.  "I  did  not 
think  of  him.  Ja,  on  this  way,  opposite  the  timber 
yard,  you  will  find  his  house."  And  he  went  off, 
bowing  and  grinning  hugely. 

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The  nature  of  the  joke  appeared  later,  but  I  wasn't 
inclined  to  laugh.  You've  seen  the  place.  No  ? 
Right  opposite  a  timber  yard  in  a  cocoanut  grove: 
it  was  a  heavy,  whitewashed  wall,  as  high  as  a  man, 
and  perhaps  two  perches  long.  Where  the  gate 
should  have  been,  a  big  tablet  was  set  in,  and  over 
that,  on  a  spike,  a  skull,  grinning  through  a  coat  of 
cement.  The  tablet  ran  in  eighteenth-century  Dutch, 
about  like  this: — 

BY  REASON  OF  THE  DETESTABLE  MEMORY  OF  THE  CON 
VICTED  TRAITOR,  PIETER  ERBERVELD,  No  ONE  SHALL 
BE  PERMITTED  TO  BUILD  IN  WOOD  OR  STONE  OR  TO 
PLANT  ANYTHING  UPON  THIS  GROUND,  FROM  Now  TILL 
JUDGMENT  DAY.  BATAVIA,  APRIL  14,  ANNO  1772. 

You'll  find  the  story  in  any  book:  the  chap  was  a 
half-caste  Guy  Fawkes  who  conspired  to  deliver  Ba- 
tavia  to  the  King  of  Bantam,  was  caught,  tried,  and 
torn  asunder  by  horses.  I  nosed  about  and  went 
through  a  hole  in  a  side  wall:  nothing  in  the  com 
pound  but  green  mould,  dried  stalks,  dead  leaves, 
and  blighted  banana  trees.  The  inside  of  the  gate 
was  blocked  with  five  to  eight  feet  of  cement.  The 
Dutch  hate  solidly. 

But  Hendrik  van  der  Have  ?  No,  I  never  found 
the  name  in  any  of  the  books.  So  there  you  are. 
Well  ?  Can  a  man  dream  of  a  thing  before  he  knows 
that  thing,  or 

The  captain's  voice,  which  had  flowed  on  in  slow 
and  dispassionate  soliloquy,  became  half  audible, 
and  ceased.  As  we  gave  ear  to  the  silence,  we  be 
came  aware  that  a  cool  stir  in  the  darkness  was  grow 
ing  into  a  breeze.  After  a  time,  the  thin  crowing  of 

256 


game-cocks  in  distant  villages,  the  first  twitter  of 
birds  among  the  highest  branches,  told  us  that  night 
had  turned  to  morning.  A  soft  patter  of  bare  feet 
came  along  the  deck,  a  shadow  stood  above  us,  and 
the  low  voice  of  the  mate  said: 

"Ada  kapal  api  disitu,  Tuan — saiah  kirah — ada 
kapal  prrang." 

"Gunboat,  eh?"  Captain  Forsythe  was  on  his 
feet,  and  speaking  briskly.  "  Bai,  tarek  jangcar. 
Breeze  comes  just  in  time." 

We  peered  seaward  from  the  rail;  far  out,  two  pale 
lights,  between  a  red  coal  and  a  green,  shone  against 
the  long,  glimmering  strip  of  dawn. 

"Heading  this  way,  but  there's  plenty  of  time," 
the  captain  said  cheerfully.  "Take  the  wheel  a  min 
ute,  youngster — that's  it, — keep  her  in, — they  can't 
see  us  against  shore  where  it's  still  night." 

As  the  schooner  swung  slowly  under  way,  his 
voice  rose,  gay  as  a  boy's: — 

"Come  on,  you  rice-fed  admirals!"  He  made  an 
improper  gesture,  his  profile  and  outspread  fingers 
showing  in  the  glow-worm  light  of  the  binnacle.  "If 
they  follow  us  through  by  the  Verdronken  Rozehgain, 
we'll  show  them  one  piecee  navigation.  Can  do,  eh  ? 
These  old  iron-clad  junks  are  something  a  man  knows 
how  to  deal  with." 


257 


MISS  JUNO 

BY 

CHARLES  WARREN  STODDARD 


Copyright,  1903,  by  A.  M.  Robertson 
Reprinted  from  FOR  THE  PLEASURE  or  His  COMPANY 


MISS  JUNO 


HERE  was  an  episode  in  the  life  of 
Paul    Clitheroe    that    may    possibly 
throw  some  little  light  upon  the  mys 
tery  of  his  taking  off;  and  in  connec 
tion   with   this   matter  it   is   perhaps 
worth  detailing. 
One  morning  Paul  found  a  drop-letter  in  the  mail 
which  greeted  him  daily.     It  ran  as  follows: 

DEAR  OLD  BOY: 

Don't  forget  the  reception  tomorrow.      Some  one 
will  be  here  whom  I  wish  you  to  know. 

Most  affectionately, 

HARRY  ENGLISH. 

The  "tomorrow"  referred  to  was  the  very  day  on 
which  Paul  received  the  sweet  reminder.  The  re 
ception  of  the  message  somewhat  disturbed  his  cus 
tomary  routine.  To  be  sure,  he  glanced  through 
the  morning  journal  as  usual;  repaired  to  the  Greek 
chop-house  with  the  dingy  green  walls,  the  smoked 
ceiling,  the  glass  partition  that  separated  the  guests 
from  a  kitchen  lined  with  shining  copper  pans,  where 
a  cook  in  a  white  paper  cap  wafted  himself  about  in 
clouds  of  vapor,  lit  by  occasional  flashes  of  light  and 

261 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


ever  curling  flames,  like  a  soul  expiating  its  sins  in  a 
prescribed  but  savory  purgatory.  He  sat  in  his 
chosen  seat,  ignored  his  neighbors  with  his  custom 
ary  nonchalance,  and  returned  to  his  room,  as  if 
nothing  were  about  to  happen.  But  he  accomplished 
little,  for  he  felt  that  the  day  was  not  wholly  his;  so 
slight  a  cause  seemed  to  change  the  whole  current 
of  his  life  from  hour  to  hour. 

In  due  season  Paul  entered  a  street  car  which  ran 
to  the  extreme  limit  of  San  Francisco.  Harry  Eng 
lish  lived  not  far  from  the  terminus,  and  to  the  cozy 
home  of  this  most  genial  and  hospitable  gentleman 
the  youth  wended  his  way.  The  house  stood  upon 
the  steep  slope  of  a  hill;  the  parlor  was  upon  a  level 
with  the  street, — a  basement  dining-room  below  it,— 
but  the  rear  of  the  house  was  quite  in  the  air  and  all 
of  the  rear  windows  commanded  a  magnificent  view 
of  the  North  Bay  with  its  islands  and  the  opposite 
mountainous  shore. 

"Infinite  riches  in  a  little  room,"  was  the  ex 
pression  which  came  involuntarily  to  Paul's  lips  the 
first  time  he  crossed  the  threshold  of  Thespian  Lodge. 
He  might  have  said  it  of  the  Lodge  any  day  in  the 
week;  the  atmosphere  was  always  balmy  and  sooth 
ing;  one  could  sit  there  without  talking  or  caring  to 
talk;  even  without  realizing  that  one  was  not  talk 
ing  and  not  being  talked  to;  the  silence  was  never 
ominous ;  it  was  a  wholesome  and  restful  home,  where 
Paul  was  ever  welcome  and  whither  he  often  fled 
for  refreshment. 

The  walls  of  the  whole  house  were  crowded  with 
pictures,  framed  photographs  and  autographs,  chiefly 
of  theatrical  celebrities;  both  "Harry,"  as  the  world 

262 


Miss  Juno 


familiarly  called  him,  and  his  wife,  were  members 
of  the  dramatic  profession  and  in  their  time  had 
played  many  parts  in  almost  as  many  lands  and 
latitudes. 

There  was  one  chamber  in  this  delightful  home 
devoted  exclusively  to  the  pleasures  of  entomology, 
and  there  the  head  of  the  house  passed  most  of  the 
hours  which  he  was  free  to  spend  apart  from  the 
duties  of  his  profession.  He  was  a  man  of  inex 
haustible  resources,  consummate  energy,  and  un 
flagging  industry,  yet  one  who  was  never  in  the  least 
hurried  or  flurried;  and  he  was  Paul's  truest  and 
most  judicious  friend. 

The  small  parlor  at  the  Englishes  was  nearly  filled 
with  guests  when  Paul  Clitheroe  arrived  upon  the 
scene.  These  guests  were  not  sitting  against  the 
wall  talking  at  each  other;  the  room  looked  as  if  it 
were  set  for  a  scene  in  a  modern  society  comedy. 
In  the  bay  window,  a  bower  of  verdure,  an  ex 
tremely  slender  and  diminutive  lady  was  discoursing 
eloquently  with  the  superabundant  gesticulation  of 
the  successful  society  amateur;  she  was  dilating  upon 
the  latest  production  of  a  minor  poet  whose  bubble 
reputation  was  at  that  moment  resplendent  with  local 
rainbows.  Her  chief  listener  was  a  languid  beauty 
of  literary  aspirations,  who,  in  a  striking  pose,  was 
fit  audience  for  the  little  lady  as  she  frothed  over  with 
delightful,  if  not  contagious,  enthusiasm. 

Mrs.  English,  who  had  been  a  famous  belle — no 
one  who  knew  her  now  would  for  a  moment  question 
the  fa 61 — devoted  herself  to  the  entertainment  of  a 
group  of  silent  people,  people  of  the  sort  that  are 
not  only  colorless,  but  seem  to  dissipate  the  color 

263 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


in  their  immediate  vicinity.  The  world  is  full  of 
such;  they  spring  up,  unaccountably,  in  locations 
where  they  appear  to  the  least  advantage.  Many  a 
clever  person  who  would  delight  to  adorn  a  circle 
he  longs  to  enter,  and  where  he  would  be  hailed  with 
joy,  through  modesty,  hesitates  to  enter  it;  while 
others,  who  are  of  no  avail  in  any  wise  whatever,  walk 
bravely  in  and  find  themselves  secure  through  a 
quiet  system  of  polite  insistence.  Among  the  latter, 
the  kind  of  people  to  be  merely  tolerated,  we  find, 
also,  the  large  majority. 

Two  children  remarkably  self-possessed  seized 
upon  Paul  the  moment  he  entered  the  room:  a  beau 
tiful  lad  as  gentle  and  as  graceful  as  a  girl,  and  his 
tiny  sister,  who  bore  herself  with  the  dignity  of  a  little 
lady  of  Lilliput.  He  was  happy  with  them,  quite  as 
happy  as  if  they  were  as  old  and  experienced  as  their 
elders  and  as  well  entertained  by  them,  likewise.  He 
never  in  his  life  made  the  mistake  that  is,  alas,  made 
by  most  parents  and  guardians,  of  treating  children 
as  if  they  were  little  simpletons  who  can  be  easily 
deceived.  How  often  they  look  with  scorn  upon 
their  elders  who  are  playing  the  hypocrite  to  eyes 
which  are,  for  the  most  part,  singularly  critical! 
Having  paid  his  respects  to  those  present — he  was 
known  to  all — Paul  was  led  a  willing  captive  into  the 
chamber  where  Harry  English  and  a  brother  profes 
sional,  an  eccentric  comedian,  who  apparently  never 
uttered  a  line  which  he  had  not  learned  out  of  a  play- 
book,  were  examining  with  genuine  enthusiasm  cer 
tain  cases  of  brilliantly  tinted  butterflies. 

The  children  were  quite  at  their  ease  in  this 
house,  and  no  wonder;  California  children  are  born 

264 


philosophers;  to  them  the  marvels  of  the  somewhat 
celebrated  entomological  collection  were  quite  famil 
iar;  again  and  again  they  had  studied  the  peculiarities 
of  the  most  rare  and  beautiful  specimens  of  insecT: 
life  under  the  loving  tutelage  of  their  friend,  who  had 
spent  his  life  and  a  small  fortune  in  gathering  to 
gether  his  treasures,  and  they  were  even  able  to  ex 
plain  in  the  prettiest  fashion  the  origin  and  use  of 
the  many  curious  objects  that  were  distributed  about 
the  rooms. 

Meanwhile  Mme.  Lillian,  the  dramatic  one,  had 
left  her  bower  in  the  bay  window  and  was  flitting 
to  and  fro  in  nervous  delight;  she  had  much  to  say 
and  it  was  always  worth  listening  to.  With  avail 
able  opportunities  she  would  have  long  since  become 
famous  and  probably  a  leader  of  her  sex;  but  it  was 
her  fate  to  coach  those  of  meaner  capacities  who  were 
ultimately  to  win  fame  and  fortune  while  she  toiled 
on,  in  genteel  poverty,  to  the  end  of  her  weary  days. 

No  two  women  could  be  more  unlike  than  this 
many-summered  butterfly,  as  she  hovered  among  her 
friends,  and  a  certain  comedy  queen  who  was  posing 
and  making  a  picture  of  herself;  the  latter  was  re 
garded  by  the  society-privates,  who  haunted  with 
fearful  delight  the  receptions  at  Thespian  Lodge, 
with  the  awe  that  inspired  so  many  inexperienced 
people  who  look  upon  members  of  the  dramatic  pro 
fession  as  creatures  of  another  and  not  a  better  world, 
and  considerably  lower  than  the  angels. 

Two  hours  passed  swiftly  by;  nothing  ever  jarred 
upon  the  guests  in  this  house;  the  perfect  suavity 
of  the  host  and  hostess  forbade  anything  like  an 
tagonism  among  their  friends;  and  though  such 

265 


qf  Fiction 


dissimilar  elements  might  never  again  harmonize,  they 
were  tranquil  for  the  time  at  least. 

The  adieus  were  being  said  in  the  chamber  of 
entomology,  which  was  somewhat  overcrowded  and 
faintly  impregnated  with  the  odor  of  corrosive  subli 
mate.  From  the  windows  overlooking  the  bay  there 
was  visible  the  expanse  of  purple  water  and  the 
tawny,  sunburnt  hills  beyond,  while  pale-blue  misty 
mountains  marked  the  horizon  with  an  undulating 
outline.  A  ship  under  full  sail — a  glorious  and  in 
spiring  sight — was  bearing  down  before  the  stiff, 
westerly  breeze. 

Mme.  Lillian  made  an  apt  quotation  which  ter 
minated  with  a  Delsartean  gesture  and  a  rising  in 
flection  that  seemed  to  exacT:  something  from  some 
body;  the  comedienne  struck  one  of  her  property  atti 
tudes,  so  irresistibly  comic  that  every  one  applauded, 
and  Mme.  Lillian  laughed  herself  to  tears;  then  they 
all  drifted  toward  the  door.  As  mankind  in  general 
has  much  of  the  sheep  in  him,  one  guest  having  got 
as  far  as  the  threshold,  the  others  followed ;  Paul  was 
left  alone  with  the  Englishes  and  those  clever  young 
sters,  whose  coachman,  accustomed  to  waiting  in 
definitely  at  the  Lodge,  was  dutifully  dozing  on  the 
box  seat.  The  children  began  to  romp  immediately 
upon  the  departure  of  the  last  guest,  and  during  the 
riotous  half-hour  that  succeeded,  there  was  a  fresh 
arrival.  The  door-bell  rang;  Mrs.  English,  who  was 
close  at  hand,  turned  to  answer  it  and  at  once  bubbled 
over  with  unaffe6led  delight.  Harry,  still  having  his 
defuncl;  legions  in  solemn  review,  recognized  a 
cheery,  un-American  voice,  and  cried,  "There  she 
is  at  last!"  as  he  hastened  to  meet  the  newcomer. 

266 


Paul  was  called  to  the  parlor  where  a  young  lady 
of  the  ultra-blonde  type  stood  with  a  faultlessly 
gloved  hand  in  the  hand  of  each  of  her  friends;  she 
was  radiant  with  life  and  health.  Of  all  the  young 
ladies  Paul  could  at  that  moment  remember  having 
seen,  she  was  the  most  exquisitely  clad;  the  folds  of 
her  gown  fell  about  her  form  like  the  drapery  of  a 
statue;  he  was  fascinated  from  the  first  moment  of 
their  meeting.  He  noticed  that  nothing  about  her 
was  ever  disarranged;  neither  was  there  anything 
superfluous  or  artificial,  in  manner  or  dress.  She 
was  in  his  opinion  an  entirely  artistic  creation.  She 
met  him  with  a  perfectly  frank  smile,  as  if  she  were 
an  old  friend  suddenly  discovering  herself  to  him, 
and  when  Harry  English  had  placed  the  hand  of  this 
delightful  person  in  one  of  Paul's  she  at  once  with 
drew  the  other,  which  Mrs.  English  fondly  held, 
and  struck  it  in  a  hearty  half-boyish  manner  upon 
their  clasped  hands,  saying,  "Awfully  glad  to  see 
you,  Paul!"  and  she  evidently  meant  it. 

This  was  Miss  Juno,  an  American  girl  bred  in 
Europe,  now,  after  years  of  absence,  passing  a  season 
in  her  native  land.  Her  parents,  who  had  taken  a 
country  home  in  one  of  the  California  valleys,  found 
in  their  only  child  all  that  was  desirable  in  life.  This 
was  not  to  be  wondered  at;  it  may  be  said  of  her  in 
the  theatrical  parlance  that  she  "filled  the  stage." 
When  Miss  Juno  dawned  upon  the  scene  the  children 
grew  grave,  and,  after  a  little  delay,  having  taken 
formal  leave  of  the  company,  they  entered  their  car 
riage  and  were  rapidly  driven  homeward. 

If  Paul  and  Miss  Juno  had  been  formed  for  one 
another  and  were  now,  at  the  right  moment  and  under 

267 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


the  most  favorable  auspices,  brought  together  for  the 
first  time,  they  could  not  have  mated  more  naturally. 
If  Miss  Juno  had  been  a  young  man,  instead  of  a  very 
charming  woman,  she  would  of  course  have  been 
Paul's  chum.  If  Paul  had  been  a  young  woman — 
some  of  his  friends  thought  he  had  narrowly  escaped 
it  and  did  not  hesitate  to  say  so — he  would  instinc 
tively  have  become  her  confidante.  As  it  was,  they 
promptly  entered  into  a  sympathetic  friendship  which 
seemed  to  have  been  without  beginning  and  was  ap 
parently  to  be  without  end. 

They  began  to  talk  of  the  same  things  at  the 
same  moment,  often  uttering  the  very  same  words, 
and  then  turned  to  one  another  with  little  shouts  of 
unembarrassed  laughter.  They  agreed  upon  all 
points,  and  aroused  each  other  to  a  ridiculous  pitch 
of  enthusiasm  over  nothing  in  particular. 

Harry  English  beamed;  there  was  evidently  noth 
ing  wanted  to  complete  his  happiness.  Mrs.  English, 
her  eyes  fairly  dancing  with  delight,  could  only  ex 
claim  at  intervals,  "Bless  the  boy!"  or,  "What  a  pair 
of  children!"  then  fondly  pass  her  arm  about  the  waist 
of  Miss  Juno — which  was  not  waspish  in  girth— 
or  rest  her  hand  upon  Paul's  shoulder  with  a  show 
of  maternal  affection  peculiarly  grateful  to  him.  It 
was  with  difficulty  the  half-dazed  young  fellow  could 
keep  apart  from  Miss  Juno.  If  he  found  she  had 
wandered  into  the  next  room,  while  he  was  engaged 
for  a  moment,  he  followed  at  his  earliest  convenience, 
and  when  their  eyes  met  they  smiled  responsively 
without  knowing  why,  and  indeed  not  caring  in  the 
least  to  know. 

They  were  as  ingenuous  as  two  children  in  their 

268 


liking  for  one  another;  their  trust  in  each  other 
would  have  done  credit  to  the  Babes  in  the  Wood. 
What  Paul  realized,  without  any  preliminary  analy 
sis  of  his  mind  or  heart,  was  that  he  wanted  to  be 
near  her,  very  near  her;  and  that  he  was  miserable 
when  this  was  not  the  case.  If  she  was  out  of  his 
sight  for  a  moment  the  virtue  seemed  to  have  gone 
from  him  and  he  fell  into  the  pathetic  melancholy 
which  he  enjoyed  in  the  days  when  he  wrote  a  great 
deal  of  indifferent  verse,  and  was  burdened  with  the 
conviction  that  his  mission  in  life  was  to  make  rhymes 
without  end. 

In  those  days,  he  had  acquired  the  habit  of  pitying 
himself.  The  emotional  middle-aged  woman  is  apt 
to  encourage  the  romantic  young  man  in  pitying 
himself;  it  is  a  grewsome  habit,  and  stands  sturdily 
in  the  way  of  all  manly  effort.  Paul  had  outgrown 
it  to  a  degree,  but  there  is  nothing  easier  in  life  than 
a  relapse — perhaps  nothing  so  natural,  yet  often 
so  unexpected. 

Too  soon  the  friends  who  had  driven  Miss  Juno 
to  Thespian  Lodge  and  passed  on — being  unac 
quainted  with  the  Englishes — called  to  carry  her 
away  with  them.  She  was  shortly — in  a  day  or  two 
in  facT: — to  rejoin  her  parents,  and  she  did  not  hesi 
tate  to  invite  Paul  to  pay  them  a  visit.  This  he  as 
sured  her  he  would  do  with  pleasure,  and  secretly 
vowed  that  nothing  on  earth  should  prevent  him. 
They  shook  hands  cordially  at  parting,  and  were  still 
smiling  their  baby  smiles  in  each  other's  faces  when 
they  did  it.  Paul  leaned  against  the  door-jamb, 
while  the  genial  Harry  and  his  wife  followed  his 
new-found  friend  to  the  carriage,  where  they  were 

269 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


duly  presented  to  its  occupants — said  occupants 
promising  to  place  Thespian  Lodge  upon  their  list. 
As  the  carriage  whirled  away,  Miss  Juno  waved  that 
exquisitely  gloved  hand  from  the  window  and  Paul's 
heart  beat  high;  somehow  he  felt  as  if  he  had  never 
been  quite  so  happy.  And  this  going  away  struck 
him  as  being  a  rather  cruel  piece  of  business.  To 
tell  the  whole  truth,  he  couldn't  understand  why 
she  should  go  at  all. 

He  felt  it  more  and  more,  as  he  sat  at  dinner  with 
his  old  friends,  the  Englishes,  and  ate  with  less 
relish  than  common  the  delicious  Yorkshire  pudding 
and  drank  the  musty  ale.  He  felt  it  as  he  accom 
panied  his  friends  to  the  theater,  where  he  sat  with 
Mrs.  English,  while  she  watched  with  pride  the  hus 
band  whose  impersonations  she  was  never  weary  of 
witnessing;  but  Paul  seemed  to  see  him  without  rec 
ognizing  him,  and  even  the  familiar  voice  sounded 
unfamiliar,  or  like  a  voice  in  a  dream.  He  felt  it 
more  and  more  when  good  Mrs.  English  gave  him 
a  nudge  toward  the  end  of  the  evening  and  called 
him  "a  stupid,"  half  in  sport  and  half  in  earnest; 
and  when  he  had  delivered  that  excellent  woman 
into  the  care  of  her  liege  lord  and  had  seen  them 
securely  packed  into  the  horse-car  that  was  to  drag 
them  tediously  homeward  in  company  with  a  great 
multitude  of  suffocating  fellow-sufferers,  he  felt  it; 
and  all  the  way  out  the  dark  street  and  up  the  hill 
that  ran,  or  seemed  to  run,  into  outer  darkness — 
where  his  home  was — he  felt  as  if  he  had  never  been 
the  man  he  was  until  now,  and  that  it  was  all  for  her 
sake  and  through  her  influence  that  this  sudden  and 
unexpe6led  transformation  had  come  to  pass.  And 

270 


Miss  Juno 


it  seemed  to  him  that  if  he  were  not  to  see  her  again, 
very  soon,  his  life  would  be  rendered  valueless;  and 
that  only  to  see  her  were  worth  all  the  honor  and 
glory  that  he  had  ever  aspired  to  in  his  wildest 
dreams;  and  that  to  be  near  her  always  and  to  feel 
that  he  were  much — nay,  everything — to  her,  as  be 
fore  God  he  felt  that  at  that  moment  she  was  to  him, 
would  make  his  life  one  long  Elysium,  and  to  death 
would  add  a  thousand  stings. 

II 

Saadi  had  no  hand  in  it,  yet  all  Persia  could  not 
outdo  it.  The  whole  valley  ran  to  roses.  They  cov 
ered  the  earth ;  they  fell  from  lofty  trellises  in  fragrant 
cataracts;  they  played  over  the  rustic  arbors  like 
fountains  of  color  and  perfume;  they  clambered  to 
the  cottage  roof  and  scattered  their  bright  petals  in 
showers  upon  the  grass.  They  were  of  every  tint 
and  texture;  of  high  and  low  degree,  modest  or 
haughty  as  the  case  might  be — but  roses  all  of  them, 
and  such  roses  as  California  alone  can  boast.  And 
some  were  fat  or  passe,  and  more's  the  pity,  but  all 
were  fragrant,  and  the  name  of  that  sweet  vale  was 
Santa  Rosa. 

Paul  was  in  the  garden  with  Miss  Juno.  He  had 
followed  her  thither  with  what  speed  he  dared.  She 
had  expected  him;  there  was  not  breathing-space 
for  conventionality  between  these  two.  In  one  part 
of  the  garden  sat  an  artist  at  his  easel;  by  his  side  a 
lady  somewhat  his  senior,  but  of  the  type  of  face 
and  figure  that  never  really  grows  old,  or  looks  it. 
She  was  embroidering  flowers  from  nature,  tinting 
them  to  the  life,  and  rivaling  her  companion  in  artistic 

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effects.  These  were  the  parents  of  Miss  Juno- 
or  rather  not  quite  that.  Her  mother  had  been 
twice  married;  first,  a  marriage  of  convenience  dark 
ened  the  earlier  years  of  her  life;  Miss  Juno  was  the 
only  reward  for  an  age  of  domestic  misery.  A  clergy 
man  joined  these  parties  —  God  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  compact;  it  would  seem  that  he  seldom  has. 
A  separation  very  naturally  and  very  properly  fol 
lowed  in  the  course  of  time;  a  young  child  was  the 
only  possible  excuse  for  the  delay  of  the  divorce. 
Thus  are  the  sins  of  the  fathers  visited  upon  the 
grandchildren.  Then  came  a  marriage  of  love.  The 
artist  who  having  found  his  ideal  had  never  known  a 
moment's  weariness,  save  when  he  was  parted  from 
her  side.  Their  union  was  perfect;  God  had  joined 
them.  The  stepfather  to  Miss  Juno  had  always  been 
like  a  big  brother  to  her — even  as  her  mother  had 
always  seemed  like  an  elder  sister. 

Oh,  what  a  trio  was  that,  my  countrymen,  where 
liberty,  fraternity  and  equality  joined  hands  without 
howling  about  it  and  making  themselves  a  nuisance 
in  the  nostrils  of  their  neighbors! 

Miss  Juno  stood  in  a  rose-arbor  and  pointed  to  the 
artists  at  their  work. 

"Did  you  ever  see  anything  like  that,  Paul?" 

"Like  what?" 

"Like  those  sweet  simpletons  yonder.  They  have 
for  years  been  quite  oblivious  of  the  world  about 
them.  Thrones  might  topple,  empires  rise  and  fall, 
it  would  matter  nothing  to  them  so  long  as  their 
garden  bloomed,  and  the  birds  nested  and  sung, 
and  he  sold  a  picture  once  in  an  age  that  the  larder 
might  not  go  bare." 

272 


Miss 


"I've  seen  something  like  it,  Miss  Juno.  I've 
seen  fellows  who  never  bothered  themselves  about 
the  affairs  of  others,— who,  in  short,  minded  their 
own  business  strictly — and  they  got  credit  for  being 
selfish." 

"Were  they  happy?" 

:<Yes,  in  their  way.  Probably  their  way  wasn't 
my  way,  and  their  kind  of  happiness  would  bore  me 
to  death.  You  know  happiness  really  can't  be  passed 
around,  like  bon-bons  or  sherbet,  for  every  one  to 
taste.  I  hate  bon-bons:  do  you  like  them?" 

"  That  depends  upon  the  quality  and  flavor — and— 
perhaps  somewhat  upon  who  offers  them.    I  never 
buy  bon-bons  for  my  private  and  personal  pleasure. 
Do  any  of  you  fellows  really  care  for  bon-bons  ?" 

''That  depends  upon  the  kind  of  happiness  we 
are  in  quest  of;  I  mean  the  quality  and  flavor  of  the 
girl  we  are  going  to  give  them  to." 

"Have  girls  a  flavor?" 

"Some  of  them  have — perhaps  most  of  them 
haven't;  neither  have  they  form  nor  feature,  nor 
tint  nor  texture,  nor  anything  that  appeals  to  a  fel 
low  of  taste  and  sentiment." 

"I'm  sorry  for  these  girls  of  yours— 

"You  needn't  be  sorry  for  the  girls;  they  are  not 
my  girls,  and  not  one  of  them  ever  will  be  mine  if 
I  can  help  it — 

"Oh,  indeed!" 

"They  are  nothing  to  me,  and  I'm  nothing  to 
them;  but  they  are  just — they  are  just  the  formless 
sort  of  thing  that  a  formless  sort  of  fellow  always 
marries;  they  help  to  fill  up  the  world,  you  know." 

"Yes,  they  help  to  fill  a  world  that  is  overfull 

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already.  Poor  Mama  and  Eugene  don't  know  how 
full  it  is.  When  Gene  wants  to  sell  a  picture  and 
can't,  he  thinks  it's  a  desert  island." 

"Probably  they  could  live  on  a  desert  island  and 
be  perfectly  happy  and  content,"  said  Paul. 

"Of  course  they  could;  the  only  trouble  would 
be  that  unless  some  one  called  them  at  the  proper 
hours  they'd  forget  to  eat — and  some  day  they'd  be 
found  dead  locked  in  their  last  embrace." 

"How  jolly!" 

"Oh,  very  jolly  for  very  young  lovers;  they  are 
usually  such  fools!" 

"And  yet,  I  believe  I'd  like  to  be  a  fool  for  love's 
sake,  Miss  Juno." 

"Oh,  Paul,  you  are  one  for  your  own, — at  least 
I'll  think  so,  if  you  work  yourself  into  this  silly 
vein!" 

Paul  was  silent  and  thoughtful.  After  a  pause 
she  continued. 

"The  trouble  with  you  is,  you  fancy  yourself  in 
love  with  every  new  girl  you  meet — at  least  with 
the  latest  one,  if  she  is  at  all  out  of  the  ordinary  line." 

"The  trouble  with  me  is  that  I  don't  keep  on  lov 
ing  the  same  girl  long  enough  to  come  to  the  happy 
climax — if  the  climax  is  to  be  a  happy  one;  of  course 
it  doesn't  follow  that  it  is  to  be  anything  of  the  sort. 
I've  been  brought  up  in  the  bosom  of  too  many 
families  to  believe  in  the  lasting  quality  of  love. 
Yet  they  are  happy,  you  say,  those  two  gentle  people 
perpetuating  spring  on  canvas  and  cambric.  See, 
there  is  a  small  cloud  of  butterflies  hovering  about 
them — one  of  them  is  panting  in  fairy-like  ecstasy 
on  the  poppy  that  decorates  your  Mama's  hat!" 

274 


Paul  rolled  a  cigarette  and  offered  it  to  Miss  Juno, 
in  a  mild  spirit  of  bravado.  To  his  delight  she  ac 
cepted  it,  as  if  it  were  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  for  a  girl  to  do.  He  rolled  another  and  they 
sat  down  together  in  the  arbor  full  of  contentment. 

"Have  you  never  been  in  love?"  asked  Paul  sud 
denly. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  so.  I  was  engaged  once;  you 
know  girls  instinctively  engage  themselves  to  some 
one  whom  they  fancy;  they  imagine  themselves  in 
love,  and  it  is  a  pleasant  fallacy.  My  engagement 
might  have  gone  on  forever,  if  he  had  contented 
himself  with  a  mere  engagement.  He  was  a  young 
army  officer  stationed  miles  and  miles  away.  We 
wrote  volumes  of  letters  to  each  other — and  they 
were  clever  letters;  it  was  rather  like  a  seaside  novel 
ette,  our  love  affair.  He  was  lonely,  or  restless,  or 
something,  and  pressed  his  case.  Then  Mama  and 
Gene — those  ideal  lovers — put  their  feet  down  and 
would  none  of  it." 

"And  you ?" 

"Of  course  I  felt  perfectly  wretched  for  a  whole 
week,  and  imagined  myself  cruelly  abused.  You  see 
he  was  a  foreigner,  without  money;  he  was  heir  to  a 
title,  but  that  would  have  brought  him  no  advantages 
in  the  household." 

'You  recovered.     What  became  of  him?" 

"  I  never  learned.  He  seemed  to  fade  away  into 
thin  air.  I  fear  I  was  not  very  much  in  love." 

"I  wonder  if  all  girls  are  like  you — if  they  forget 


so  easily?" 


'You  have  yourself  declared    that    the  majority 
have  neither  form  nor  feature;  perhaps  they  have 

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no  feeling.  How  do  men  feel  about  a  broken  en 
gagement  ?" 

"I  can  only  speak  for  myself.  There  was  a  time 
when  I  felt  that  marriage  was  the  inevitable  fate  of 
all  respectable  people.  Some  one  wanted  me  to  marry 
a  certain  some  one  else.  I  didn't  seem  to  care  much 
about  it;  but  my  friend  was  one  of  those  natural- 
born  match-makers;  she  talked  the  young  lady  up 
to  me  in  such  a  shape  that  I  almost  fancied  myself 
in  love  and  actually  began  to  feel  that  I'd  be  doing 
her  an  injustice  if  I  permitted  her  to  go  on  loving 
and  longing  for  the  rest  of  her  days.  So  one  day  I 
wrote  her  a  proposal;  it  was  the  kind  of  proposal 
one  might  decline  without  injuring  a  fellow's  feelings 
in  the  least — and  she  did  it!"  After  a  thoughtful 
pause  he  continued: 

"By  Jove!  But  wasn't  I  immensely  relieved  when 
her  letter  came;  such  a  nice,  dear,  good  letter  it  was, 
too,  in  which  she  assured  me  there  had  evidently 
been  a  mistake  somewhere,  and  nothing  had  been 
further  from  her  thoughts  than  the  hope  of  marrying 
me.  So  she  let  me  down  most  beautifully 

"And  offered  to  be  a  sister  to  you?" 

"Perhaps;  I  don't  remember  now;  I  always  felt 
embarrassed  after  that  when  her  name  was  men 
tioned.  I  couldn't  help  thinking  what  an  infernal 
ass  I'd  made  of  myself." 

"It  was  all  the  fault  of  your  friend." 

"Of  course  it  was;  I'd  never  have  dreamed  of 
proposing  to  her  if  I  hadn't  been  put  up  to  it  by  the 
match-maker.  Oh,  what  a  lot  of  miserable  marriages 
are  brought  on  in  just  this  way!  You  see  when  I  like 
a  girl  ever  so  much,  I  seem  to  like  her  too  well 

276 


Miss  Juno 


to  marry  her.  I  think  it  would  be  mean  of  me  to 
marry  her." 

"Why?" 

"Because — because  I'd  get  tired  after  a  while; 
everybody  does,  sooner  or  later, — everybody  save 
your  Mama  and  Eugene, — and  then  I'd  say  some 
thing  or  do  something  I  ought  not  to  say  or  do,  and 
I'd  hate  myself  for  it;  or  she'd  say  something  or  do 
something  that  would  make  me  hate  her.  We  might, 
of  course,  get  over  it  and  be  very  nice  to  one  another; 
but  we  could  never  be  quite  the  same  again.  Wounds 
leave  scars,  and  you  can't  forget  a  scar — can  you?" 

''You  may  scar  too  easily!" 

"I  suppose  I  do,  and  that  is  the  very  best  reason 
why  I  should  avoid  the  occasion  of  one." 

"So  you  have  resolved  never  to  marry?" 

"Oh,  I've  resolved  it  a  thousand  times,  and  yet, 
somehow,  I'm  forever  meeting  some  one  a  little  out 
of  the  common;  some  one  who  takes  me  by  storm,  as 
it  were;  some  one  who  seems  to  me  a  kind  of  revela 
tion,  and  then  I  feel  as  if  I  must  marry  her  whether 
or  no;  sometimes  I  fear  I  shall  wake  up  and  find  my 
self  married  in  spite  of  myself — wouldn't  that  be 
frightful?" 

"Frightful  indeed — and  then  you'd  have  to  get 
used  to  it,  just  as  most  married  people  get  used  to  it 
in  the  course  of  time.  You  know  it's  a  very  matter-of- 
facl  world  we  live  in,  and  it  takes  very  matter-of-facl; 
people  to  keep  it  in  good  running  order." 

'  Yes.  But  for  these  drudges,  these  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water,  that  ideal  pair  yonder  could 
not  go  on  painting  and  embroidering  things  of  beauty 
with  nothing  but  the  butterflies  to  bother  them." 

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Fiction 


"Butterflies  don't  bother;  they  open  new  vistas 
of  beauty,  and  they  set  examples  that  it  would  do  the 
world  good  to  follow;  the  butterfly  says,  'my  mission 
is  to  be  brilliant  and  jolly  and  to  take  no  thought  of 
the  morrow." 

"It's  the  thought  of  the  morrow,  Miss  Juno,  that 
spoils  today  for  me, — that  morrow — who  is  going  to 
pay  the  rent  of  it?  Who  is  going  to  keep  it  in  food 
and  clothes?" 

"Paul,  you  have  already  lived  and  loved,  where 
there  is  no  rent  to  pay  and  where  the  clothing  worn 
is  not  worth  mentioning;  as  for  the  food  and  the 
drink  in  that  dele6table  land,  nature  provides  them 
both.  I  don't  see  why  you  need  to  take  thought  of 
the  morrow;  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  take  passage  for 
some  South  Sea  Island,  and  let  the  world  go  by." 

"  But  the  price  of  the  ticket,  my  friend;  where  is  that 
to  come  from  ?  To  be  sure  I'm  only  a  bachelor,  and 
have  none  but  myself  to  consider.  What  would  I 
do  if  I  had  a  wife  and  family  to  provide  for?" 

"You'd  do  as  most  other  fellows  in  the  same 
predicament  do;  you'd  provide  for  them  as  well  as 
you  could ;  and  if  that  wasn't  sufficient,  you'd  desert 
them,  or  blow  your  brains  out  and  leave  them  to  pro 
vide  for  themselves." 

"An  old  bachelor  is  a  rather  comfortable  old 
party.  I'm  satisfied  with  my  manifest  destiny;  but 
I'm  rather  sorry  for  old  maids — aren't  you?" 

"That  depends;  of  course  everything  in  life  de 
pends;  some  of  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  blessed, 
the  most  bountifully  happy  women  I  have  ever  known 
were  old  maids;  I  propose  to  be  one  myself — if  I  live 
long  enough!" 

278 


After  an  interlude,  during  which  the  bees  boomed 
among  the  honey-blossoms,  the  birds  caroled  on  the 
boughs,  and  the  two  artists  laughed  softly  as  they 
chatted  at  their  delightful  work,  Paul  resumed: 

"  Do  you  know,  Miss  Juno,  this  anti-climax  strikes 
me  as  being  exceedingly  funny?  When  I  met  you 
the  other  day,  I  felt  as  if  I'd  met  my  fate.  I  know 
well  enough  that  I'd  felt  that  way  often  before,  and 
promptly  recovered  from  the  attack.  I  certainly 
never  felt  it  in  the  same  degree  until  I  came  face  to 
face  with  you.  I  was  never  quite  so  fairly  and 
squarely  face  to  face  with  any  one  before.  I  came 
here  because  I  could  not  help  myself.  I  simply  had 
to  come,  and  to  come  at  once.  I  was  resolved  to  pro 
pose  to  you  and  to  marry  you  without  a  cent,  if  you'd 
let  me.  I  didn't  expecl  that  you'd  let  me,  but  I  felt 
it  my  duty  to  find  out.  I'm  dead  sure  that  I  was  very 
much  in  love  with  you — and  I  am  now;  but  some 
how  it  isn't  that  spoony  sort  of  love  that  makes  a  man 
unwholesome  and  sometimes  drives  him  to  drink  or  to 
suicide.  I  suppose  I  love  you  too  well  to  want  to  marry 
you;  but  God  knows  how  glad  I  am  that  we  have 
met,  and  I  hope  that  we  shall  never  really  part  again." 

"Paul!" — Miss  Juno's  rather  too  pallid  cheeks 
were  slightly  tinged  with  rose;  she  seemed  more  than 
ever  to  belong  to  that  fair  garden,  to  have  become  a 
part  of  it,  in  fa6t; — "Paul,"  said  she,  earnestly 
enough,  "you're  an  awfully  good  fellow,  and  I  like 
you  so  much;  I  shall  always  like  you;  but  if  you  had 
been  fool  enough  to  propose  to  me  I  should  have 
despised  you.  Shake!"  And  she  extended  a  most 
shapely  hand  that  clasped  his  warmly  and  firmly. 
While  he  still  held  it  without  restraint,  he  added ; 

279 


°f  Fiction 


"Why  I  like  you  so  much  is  because  you  are  un 
like  other  girls;  that  is  to  say,  you're  perfectly 
natural." 

"Most  people  who  think  me  unlike  other  girls, 
think  me  unnatural  for  that  reason.  It  is  hard  to  be 
natural,  isn't  it?" 

"Why,  no,  I  think  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the 
world  to  be  natural.  I'm  as  natural  as  I  can  be,  or 
as  anybody  can  be." 

"And  yet  I've  heard  you  pronounced  a  bundle  of 
affectations." 

"I  know  that — it's  been  said  in  my  hearing,  but 
I  don't  care  in  the  least;  it  is  natural  for  the  perfectly 
natural  person  not  to  care  in  the  least." 

"I  think,  perhaps,  it  is  easier  for  boys  to  be  nat 
ural,  than  for  girls,"  said  Miss  Juno. 

"Yes,  boys  are  naturally  more  natural,"  replied 
Paul  with  much  confidence. 

Miss  Juno  smiled  an  amused  smile. 

Paul  resumed — "I  hardly  ever  knew  a  girl  who 
didn't  wish  herself  a  boy.  Did  you  ever  see  a  boy 
who  wanted  to  be  a  girl?" 

"I've  seen  some  who  ought  to  have  been  girls — 
and  who  would  have  made  very  droll  girls.  I  know 
an  old  gentleman  who  used  to  bewail  the  degeneracy 
of  the  age  and  exclaim  in  despair,  'Boys  will  be 
girls!'"  laughed  Miss  Juno. 

"Horrible  thought!  But  why  is  it  that  girlish  boys 
are  so  unpleasant  while  torn-boys  are  delightful?" 

"I  don't  know,"  replied  she,  "unless  the  girlish 
boy  has  lost  the  charm  of  his  sex,  that  is  manliness; 
and  the  torn-boy  has  lost  the  defedt  of  hers — a  kind 
of  selfish  dependence." 

280 


"I'm  sure  the  girls  like  you,  don't  they?"  he 
added. 

"Not  always;  and  there  are  lots  of  girls  I  can't 
endure!" 

"I've  noticed  that  women  who  are  most  admired 
by  women  are  seldom  popular  with  men ;  and  that  the 
women  the  men  go  wild  over  are  little  appreciated  by 
their  own  sex,"  said  Paul. 

"Yes,  I've  noticed  that;  as  for  myself  my  best 
friends  are  masculine ;  but  when  I  was  away  at  board 
ing-school  my  chum,  who  was  immensely  popular, 
used  to  call  me  Jack!" 

"How  awfully  jolly;  may  I  call  you  'Jack'  and 
will  you  be  my  chum?" 

"Of  course  I  will;  but  what  idiots  the  world  would 
think  us." 

"Who  cares?"  cried  he  defiantly.  "  There  are  mil 
lions  of  fellows  this  very  moment  who  would  give 
their  all  for  such  a  pal  as  you  are — Jack!" 

There  was  a  fluttering  among  the  butterflies;  the 
artists  had  risen  and  were  standing  waist-deep  in  the 
garden  of  gracious  things;  they  were  coming  to 
Paul  and  Miss  Juno,  and  in  amusing  pantomime 
announcing  that  pangs  of  hunger  were  compelling 
their  return  to  the  cottage;  the  truth  is,  it  was  long 
past  the  lunch  hour — and  a  large  music-box  which 
had  been  set  in  motion  when  the  light  repast  was 
laid  had  failed  to  catch  the  ear  with  its  tinkling  aria. 

All  four  of  the  occupants  of  the  garden  turned 
leisurely  toward  the  cottage.  Miss  Juno  had  rested 
her  hand  on  Paul's  shoulder  and  said  in  a  delightfully 
confidential  way:  "Let  it  be  a  secret  that  we  are 
chums,  dear  boy — the  world  is  such  an  idiot." 

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"All  right,  Jack,"  whispered  Paul,  trying  to  hug 
himself  in  delight,  'Little  secrets  are  cozy." 

And  in  the  scent  of  the  roses  it  was  duly  embalmed. 

Ill 

Happy  is  the  man  who  is  without  encumbrances— 
that  is  if  he  knows  how  to  be  happy.  Whenever 
Paul  Clitheroe  found  the  burden  of  the  day  becom 
ing  oppressive  he  cast  it  off,  and  sought  solace  in  a 
change  of  scene.  He  could  always,  or  almost  always, 
do  this  at  a  moment's  notice.  It  chanced,  upon  a  cer 
tain  occasion,  when  a  little  community  of  artists  were 
celebrating  the  sale  of  a  great  picture — the  master 
piece  of  one  of  their  number — that  word  was  sent  to 
Paul  to  join  their  feast.  He  found  the  large  studio 
where  several  of  them  worked  intermittently,  highly 
decorated;  a  table  was  spread  in  a  manner  to  have 
awakened  an  appetite  even  upon  the  palate  of  the 
surfeited;  there  were  music  and  dancing,  and  bac 
chanalian  revels  that  went  on  and  on  from  night  to 
day  and  on  to  night  again.  It  was  a  veritable  feast  of 
lanterns,  and  not  until  the  last  one  had  burned  to  the 
socket  and  the  wine-vats  were  empty  and  the  studio 
strewn  with  unrecognizable  debris  and  permeated 
with  odors  stale,  flat  and  unprofitable,  did  the  revels 
cease.  Paul  came  to  dine;  he  remained  three  days; 
he  had  not  yet  worn  out  his  welcome,  but  he  had  re 
solved,  as  was  his  wont  at  intervals,  to  withdraw 
from  the  world,  and  so  he  returned  to  the  Eyrie, — 
which  was  ever  his  initial  step  toward  the  accomplish 
ment  of  the  longed-for  end. 

Not  very  many  days  later  Paul  received  the  breez 
iest  of  letters ;  it  was  one  of  a  series  of  racy  rhapsodies 

282 


Miss  Juno 


that  came  to  him  bearing  the  Santa  Rosa  postmark. 
They  were  such  letters  as  a  fellow  might  write  to  a 
college  chum,  but  with  no  line  that  could  have 
brought  a  blush  to  the  cheek  of  modesty — not  that 
the  college  chum  is  necessarily  given  to  the  inditing 
of  such  epistles.  These  letters  were  signed  "Jack." 
"Jack"  wrote  to  say  how  the  world  was  all  in 
bloom  and  the  rose-garden  one  bewildering  maze  of 
blossoms;  how  Mama  was  still  embroidering  from 
nature  in  the  midst  thereof,  crowned  with  a  wreath  of 
butterflies  and  with  one  uncommonly  large  one 
perched  upon  her  Psyche  shoulder  and  fanning  her 
cheek  with  its  brilliantly  dyed  wing;  how  Eugene  was 
reveling  in  his  art,  painting  lovely  pictures  of  the  old 
Spanish  Missions  with  shadowy  outlines  of  the 
ghostly  fathers,  long  since  departed,  haunting  the 
dismantled  cloisters;  how  the  air  was  like  the  breath 
of  heaven,  and  the  twilight  unspeakably  pathetic, 
and  they  were  all  three  constantly  reminded  of  Italy 
and  forever  talking  of  Rome  and  the  Campagna,  and 
Venice,  and  imagining  themselves  at  home  again  and 
Paul  with  them,  for  they  had  resolved  that  he  was 
quite  out  of  his  element  in  California;  they  had  sworn 
he  must  be  rescued;  he  must  return  with  them  to 
Italy  and  that  right  early.  He  must  wind  up  his  af 
fairs  and  set  his  house  in  order  at  once  and  forever; 
he  should  never  go  back  to  it  again,  but  live  a  new 
life  and  a  gentler  life  in  that  oldest  and  most  gentle 
of  lands;  they  simply  must  take  him  with  them  and 
seat  him  by  the  shore  of  the  Venetian  Sea,  where 
he  could  enjoy  his  melancholy,  if  he  must  be  mel 
ancholy,  and  find  himself  for  the  first  time  provided 
with  a  suitable  background.  This  letter  came  to 

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him  inlaid  with  rose  petals;  they  showered  upon  him 
in  all  their  fragrance  as  he  read  the  inspiring  pages, 
and,  since  "Jack"  with  quite  a  martial  air  had  is 
sued  a  mandate  which  ran  as  follows,  "  Order  No. 
19 — Paul  Clitheroe  will,  upon  receipt  of  this,  report 
immediately  at  headquarters  at  Santa  Rosa,"  he 
placed  the  key  of  his  outer  door  in  his  pocket  and 

straightway  departed  without  more  ado. 

#         *         *         *         #         #         *         # 

They  swung  in  individual  hammocks,  Paul  and 
"  Jack,"  within  the  rose-screened  veranda.  The  con 
jugal  affinities,  Violet  and  Eugene,  were  lost  to  the 
world  in  the  depths  of  the  rose-garden  beyond  sight 
and  hearing. 

Said  Jack,  resuming  a  rambling  conversation  which 
had  been  interrupted  by  the  noisy  passage  of  a  bee, 
"That  particular  bee  reminds  me  of  some  people 
who  fret  over  their  work,  and  who  make  others  who 
are  seeking  rest,  extremely  uncomfortable." 

Paul  was  thoughtful  for  a  few  moments  and  then 
remarked:  "And  yet  it  is  a  pleasant  work  he  is  en 
gaged  in,  and  his  days  are  passed  in  the  fairest  fields ; 
he  evidently  enjoys  his  trade  even  if  he  does  seem  to 
bustle  about  it.  I  can  excuse  the  buzz  and  the  hum 
in  him,  when  I  can't  always  in  the  human  tribes." 

"If  you  knew  what  he  was  saying  just  now,  per 
haps  you'd  find  him  as  disagreeable  as  the  man  who 
is  condemned  to  earn  his  bread  in  the  sweat  of  his 
brow,  and  makes  more  or  less  of  a  row  about  it." 

"Very  likely,  Jack,  but  these  bees  are  born  with 
business  instincts,  and  they  can't  enjoy  loafing;  they 
don't  know  how  to  be  idle.  Being  as  busy  as  a  busy 
bee  must  be  being  very  busy!" 

284 


"There  is  the  hum  of  the  hive  in  that  phrase,  old 
boy!  I'm  sure  you've  been  working  up  to  it  all  along. 
Come  now,  confess,  you've  had  that  in  hand  for  some 
little  time." 

"Well,  what  if  I  have?  That  is  what  writers  do, 
and  they  have  to  do  it.  How  else  can  they  make 
their  dialogue  in  the  least  attractive  ?  Did  you  ever 
write  a  story,  Jack?" 

"No,  of  course  not;  how  perfectly  absurd!" 

"Not  in  the  least  absurd.  You've  been  reading 
novels  ever  since  you  were  born.  You've  the  knack 
of  the  thing,  the  telling  of  a  story,  the  developing  of 
a  plot,  the  final  wind-up  of  the  whole  concern,  right 
at  your  tongue's  end." 

"Paul,  you're  an  idiot." 

"Idiot,  Jack?  I'm  nothing  of  the  sort  and  I  can 
prove  what  I've  just  been  saying  to  you  about  your 
self.  Now,  listen  and  don't  interrupt  me  until  I've 
said  my  say." 

Paul  caught  hold  of  a  branch  of  vine  close  at  hand 
and  set  his  hammock  swinging  slowly.  Miss  Juno 
settled  herself  more  comfortably  in  hers,  and  seemed 
much  interested  and  amused. 

"Now,"  said  Paul,  with  a  comical  air  of  impor 
tance — "now,  any  one  who  has  anything  at  his 
tongue's  end,  has  it,  or  can,  just  as  well  as  not,  have 
it  at  his  finger's  end.  If  you  can  tell  a  story  well, 
and  you  can,  Jack,  you  know  you  can,  you  can  write 
it  just  as  well.  You  have  only  to  tell  it  with  your  pen 
instead  of  with  your  lips;  and  if  you  will  only  write 
it  exactly  as  you  speak  it,  so  long  as  your  verbal  ver 
sion  is  a  good  one,  your  pen  version  is  bound  to  be 
equally  as  good;  moreover,  it  seems  to  me  that  in  this 

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way  one  is  likely  to  adopt  the  most  natural  style, 
which  is,  of  course,  the  best  of  all  styles.  Now  what 
do  you  say  to  that?" 

"Oh,  nothing,"  after  a  little  pause — "however,  I 
doubt  that  any  one,  male  or  female,  can  take  up  pen 
for  the  first  time  and  tell  a  tale  like  a  practised 


writer." 


"Of  course  not.  The  practised  writer,  has  a  style 
of  his  own,  a  conventional  narrative  style  which  may 
be  very  far  from  nature.  People  in  books  very  seldom 
talk  as  they  do  in  real  life.  When  people  in  books 
begin  to  talk  like  human  beings  the  reader  thinks  the 
dialogue  either  commonplace  or  mildly  realistic,  and 
votes  it  a  bore." 

"Then  why  try  to  write  as  one  talks?  Why  not 
cultivate  the  conventional  style  of  the  practised 
writer?" 

"Why  talk  commonplaces?"  cried  Paul  a  little 
tartly.  "Of  course  most  people  must  do  so  if  they 
talk  at  all,  and  they  are  usually  the  people  who  talk 
all  the  time.  But  I  have  known  people  whose  ordi 
nary  conversation  was  extraordinary,  and  worth  put 
ting  down  in  a  book — every  word  of  it." 

"In  my  experience,"  said  Miss  Juno,  "people  who 
talk  like  books  are  a  burden." 

"They  needn't  talk  like  the  conventional  book,  I 
tell  you.  Let  them  have  something  to  say  and  say  it 
cleverly — that  is  the  kind  of  conversation  to  make 
books  of." 

"What  if  all  that  we've  been  saying  here,  under 
the  rose,  as  it  were,  were  printed  just  as  we've  said 
it?" 

"What  if  it  were?     It  would  at  least  be  natural, 

286 


and  we've  been  saying  something  of  interest  to  each 
other;  why  should  it  not  interest  a  third  party?" 

Miss  Juno  smiled  and  rejoined,  "I  am  not  a  con 
firmed  eavesdropper,  but  I  often  find  myself  so 
situated  that  I  cannot  avoid  overhearing  what  other 
people  are  saying  to  one  another;  it  is  seldom  that, 
under  such  circumstances,  I  hear  anything  that  in 
terests  me." 

"Yes,  but  if  you  knew  the  true  story  of  those  very 
people,  all  that  they  may  be  saying  in  your  hearing 
would  no  doubt  possess  an  interest,  inasmuch  as 
it  would  serve  to  develop  their  history." 

"Our  conversation  is  growing  a  little  thin,  Paul, 
don't  you  think  so?  We  couldn't  put  all  this  into  a 
book." 

"If  it  helped  to  give  a  clue  to  our  character  and 
our  motives,  we  could.  The  thing  is  to  be  interesting: 
if  we  are  interesting,  in  ourselves,  by  reason  of  our 
original  charm  or  our  unconventionality,  almost  any 
thing  we  might  say  or  do  ought  to  interest  others. 
Conventional  people  are  never  interesting." 

uYet  the  majority  of  mankind  is  conventional  to 
a  degree;  the  conventionals  help  to  fill  up;  their 
habitual  love  of  conventionality,  or  their  fear  of  the 
unconventional,  is  what  keeps  them  in  their  place. 
This  is  very  fortunate.  On  the  other  hand,  a  world 
full  of  people  too  clever  to  be  kept  in  their  proper 
spheres,  would  be  simply  intolerable.  But  there  is 
no  danger  of  this!" 

"Yes,  you  are  right,"  said  Paul  after  a  moment's 
pause; — "you  are  interesting,  and  that  is  why  I  like 
you  so  well." 

;<You  mean  that  I  am  unconventional?" 

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"Exa6lly.  And,  as  I  said  before,  that  is  why  I'm 
so  awfully  fond  of  you.  By  Jove,  I'm  so  glad  I'm 
not  in  love  with  you,  Jack." 

"So  am  I,  old  boy;  I  couldn't  put  up  with  that 
at  all;  you'd  have  to  go  by  the  next  train,  you  know; 
you  would,  really.  And  yet,  if  we  are  to  write  a  novel 
apiece  we  shall  be  obliged  to  put  love  into  it;  love 
with  a  very  large  L." 

"No  we  wouldn't;  I'm  sure  we  wouldn't." 

Miss  Juno  shook  her  golden  locks  in  doubt — 
Paul  went  on  persistently: — "I'm  dead  sure  we 
wouldn't;  and  to  prove  it,  some  day  I'll  write  a  story 
without  its  pair  of  lovers;  everybody  shall  be  more  or 
less  spoony — but  nobody  shall  be  really  in  love." 

"It  wouldn't  be  a  story,  Paul." 

"  It  would  be  a  history,  or  a  fragment  of  a  history, 
a  glimpse  of  a  life  at  any  rate,  and  that  is  as  much 
as  we  ever  get  of  the  lives  of  those  around  us.  Why 
can't  I  tell  you  the  story  of  one  fellow — of  myself 
for  example;  how  one  day  I  met  this  person,  and 
the  next  day  I  met  that  person,  and  next  week  some 
one  else  comes  on  to  the  stage,  and  struts  his  little 
hour  and  departs.  I'm  not  trying  to  give  my  audience, 
my  readers,  any  knowledge  of  that  other  fellow.  My 
reader  must  see  for  himself  how  each  of  those  fellows 
in  his  own  way  has  influenced  me.  The  story  is 
my  story,  a  study  of  myself,  nothing  more  or  less. 
If  the  reader  don't  like  me  he  may  lay  me  down  in 
my  cloth  or  paper  cover,  and  have  nothing  more  to  do 
with  me.  If  I'm  not  a  hero,  perhaps  it's  not  so  much 
my  fault  as  my  misfortune.  That  people  are  in 
terested  in  me,  and  show  it  in  a  thousand  different 
ways,  assures  me  that  my  story,  not  the  story  of  those 

288 


with  whom  I'm  thrown  in  contact,  is  what  interests 
them.  It's  a  narrow-gauge,  single-track  story,  but 
it  runs  through  a  delightful  bit  of  country,  and  if 
my  reader  wants  to  look  out  of  my  windows  and  see 
things  as  I  see  them  and  find  out  how  they  influence 
me,  he  is  welcome;  if  he  doesn't,  he  may  get  off  at 
the  very  next  station  and  change  cars  for  Elsewhere." 

"I  shall  have  love  in  my  story,"  said  Miss  Juno, 
with  an  amusing  touch  of  sentiment  that  on  her  lips 
sounded  like  polite  comedy. 

"You  may  have  all  the  love  you  like,  and  appeal 
to  the  same  old  novel-reader  who  has  been  reading 
the  same  sort  of  love  story  for  the  last  hundred  years, 
and  when  you've  finished  your  work  and  your  reader 
has  stood  by  you  to  the  sweet  or  bitter  end,  no  one  will 
be  any  the  wiser  or  better.  You've  taught  nothing, 
you've  untaught  nothing — and  there  you  are!" 

"Oh!  A  young  man  with  a  mission!  Do  you 
propose  to  revolutionize?" 

"No;  revolutions  only  roil  the  water.  You  might 
as  well  try  to  make  water  flow  up-hill  as  to  really 
revolutionize  anything.  I'd  beautify  the  banks  of 
the  stream,  and  round  the  sharp  turns  in  it,  and  weed 
it  out,  and  sow  water-lilies,  and  set  the  white  swan 
with  her  snow-flecked  breast  afloat.  That's  what 
I'd  do!" 

"That's  the  art  of  the  landscape  gardener;  I  don't 
clearly  see  how  it  is  of  benefit  to  the  novelist,  Paul! 
Now,  honestly,  is  it?" 

'You  don't  catch  my  meaning,  Jack;  girls  are 
deuced  dull,  you  know, — I  mean  obtuse."  Miss  Juno 
flushed.  "I  wasn't  referring  to  the  novel;  I  was 
saying  that  instead  of  writing  my  all  in  a  vain  effort 

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to  revolutionize  anything  in  particular,  I'd  try  to  get 
all  the  good  I  could  out  of  the  existing  evil,  and  make 
the  best  of  it.  But  let's  not  talk  in  this  vein  any 
longer;  I  hate  argument.  Argument  is  nothing  but 
a  logical  or  illogical  set-to;  begin  it  as  politely  as  you 
please,  it  is  not  long  before  both  parties  throw  aside 
their  gloves  and  go  in  with  naked  and  bloody  fists; 
one  of  the  two  gets  knocked  out,  but  he  hasn't  been 
convinced  of  anything  in  particular;  he  was  not  in 
condition,  that  is  all;  better  luck  next  time." 

"Have  you  the  tobacco,  Paul?"  asked  Miss 
Juno,  extending  her  hand.  The  tobacco  was  silently 
passed  from  one  hammock  to  the  other;  each  rolled 
a  cigarette,  and  lit  it.  Paul  blew  a  great  smoke  ring 
into  the  air;  his  companion  blew  a  lesser  one  that 
shot  rapidly  after  the  larger  halo,  and  the  two  were 
speedily  blended  in  a  pretty  vapor  wraith. 

"That's  the  ghost  of  an  argument,  Jack,"  said 
Paul,  glancing  above.  He  resumed:  "What  I  was 
about  to  say  when  I  was  interrupted"  —this  was  his 
pet  joke;  he  knew  well  enough  that  he  had  been 
monopolizing  the  conversation  of  the  morning— 
"  what  I  was  about  to  say  was  this:  my  novel  shall 
be  full  of  love,  but  you  won't  know  that  it  is  love — I 
mean  the  every-day  love  of  the  every-day  people.  In 
my  book  everybody  is  going  to  love  everybody  else — 
or  almost  everybody  else;  if  there  is  any  sort  of  a 
misunderstanding  it  sha'n't  matter  much.  I  hate  rows; 
I  believe  in  the  truest  and  the  fondest  fellowship. 
What  is  true  love  ?  It  is  bosom  friendship;  that  is  the 
purest  passion  of  love.  It  is  the  only  love  that  lasts." 

There  was  a  silence  for  the  space  of  some  min 
utes;  Paul  and  Miss  Juno  were  quietly,  dreamily 

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Miss  Juno 


smoking.  Without,  among  the  roses,  there  was  the 
boom  of  bees;  the  carol  of  birds,  the  flutter  of  balan 
cing  butterflies.  Nature  was  very  soothing,  she  was 
in  one  of  her  sweetest  moods.  The  two  friends  were 
growing  drowsy.  Miss  Juno,  if  she  at  times  be 
trayed  a  feminine  fondness  for  argument,  was  cer 
tainly  in  no  haste  to  provoke  Paul  to  a  further  dis 
cussion  of  the  quality  of  love  or  friendship;  presently 
she  began  rather  languidly: 

"You  were  saying  I  ought  to  write,  and  that  you 
believe  I  can,  if  I  will  only  try.  I'm  going  to  try; 
I've  been  thinking  of  something  that  happened  within 
my  knowledge;  perhaps  I  can  make  a  magazine 
sketch  of  it." 

"Oh,  please  write  it,  Jack!  Write  it,  and  send  the 
manuscript  to  me,  that  I  may  place  it  for  you;  will 
you?  Promise  me  you  will!"  The  boy  was  quite 
enthusiastic,  and  his  undisguised  pleasure  in  the 
prospe6l  of  seeing  something  from  the  pen  of  his 
pal — as  he  loved  to  call  Miss  Juno — seemed  to 
awaken  a  responsive  echo  in  her  heart. 

"I  will,  Paul;  I  promise  you!" — and  the  two 
struck  hands  on  it. 

IV 

When  Paul  returned  to  the  Eyrie,  it  had  been  de 
cided  that  Miss  Juno  was  to  at  once  begin  her  first 
contribution  to  periodic  literature.  She  had  found 
her  plot;  she  had  only  to  tell  her  story  in  her  own 
way,  just  as  if  she  were  recounting  it  to  Paul.  In 
deed,  at  his  suggestion,  she  had  promised  to  sit  with 
pen  in  hand  and  address  him  as  if  he  were  actually 
present.  In  this  way  he  hoped  she  would  drop  into 

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the  narrative  style  natural  to  her,  and  so  attractive 
to  her  listeners. 

As  for  Paul  Clitheroe,  he  was  to  make  inquiry 
among  his  editorial  friends  in  the  Misty  City,  and  see 
if  he  might  not  effect  some  satisfactory  arrangement 
with  one  or  another  of  them,  whereby  he  would  be 
placed  in  a  position  enabling  him  to  go  abroad  in  the 
course  of  a  few  weeks,  and  remain  abroad  indefin 
itely.  He  would  make  Venice  his  headquarters;  he 
would  have  the  constant  society  of  his  friends;  the 
fellowship  of  Jack;  together,  after  the  joint  literary 
labors  of  the  day,  they  would  stem  the  sluggish  tide 
of  the  darksome  canals  and  exchange  sentiment  and 
cigarette  smoke  in  mutual  delight.  Paul  was  to  write 
a  weekly  or  a  semi-monthly  letter  to  the  journal  em 
ploying  him  as  a  special  correspondent.  At  inter 
vals,  in  the  company  of  his  friends,  or  alone,  he  would 
set  forth  upon  one  of  those  charming  excursions  so 
fruitful  of  picturesque  experience,  and  return  to  his 
lodgings  on  the  Schiavoni,  to  work  them  up  into 
magazine  articles;  these  would  later,  of  course,  get 
into  book  form ;  from  the  book  would  come  increased 
reputation,  a  larger  source  of  revenue,  and  the  con 
tentment  of  success  which  he  so  longed  for,  so  often 
thought  he  had  found,  and  so  seldom  enjoyed  for  any 
length  of  time. 

All  this  was  to  be  arranged, — or  rather  the  means 
to  which  all  this  was  the  delightful  end — was  to  be 
settled  as  soon  as  possible.  Miss  Juno,  having  fin 
ished  her  story,  was  to  send  word  to  Paul  and  he  was 
to  hie  him  to  the  Rose  Garden;  thereafter  at  an  ideal 
dinner,  elaborated  in  honor  of  the  occasion,  Eugene 
was  to  read  the  maiden  effort,  while  the  author, 

292 


sustained  by  the  sympathetic  presence  of  her  admir 
ing  Mama  and  her  devoted  Paul,  awaited  the  verdidl. 

This  was  to  be  the  test — a  trying  one  for  Miss 
Juno.  As  for  Paul,  he  felt  quite  patriarchal,  and  yet, 
so  genuine  and  so  deep  was  his  interest  in  the  future 
of  his  protegee,  that  he  was  already  showing  symp 
toms  of  anxiety. 

The  article  having  been  sent  to  the  editor  of  the 
first  magazine  in  the  land,  the  family  would  be  ready 
to  fold  its  aesthetic  tent  and  depart;  Paul,  of  course, 
accompanying  them. 

It  was  a  happy  thought;  visions  of  Venice;  the 
moonlit  lagoon;  the  reflected  lamps  plunging  their 
tongues  of  flame  into  the  sea;  the  humid  air,  the 
almost  breathless  silence,  broken  at  intervals  by  the 
baying  of  deep-mouthed  bells;  the  splash  of  oars; 
the  soft  tripping  measure  of  human  voices  and  the 
refrain  of  the  gondoliers;  Jack  by  his  side — Jack 
now  in  her  element,  with  the  maroon  fez  of  the  dis 
tinguished  howadji  tilted  upon  the  back  of  her  hand 
some  head,  her  shapely  finger-nails  stained  with 
henna,  her  wrists  weighed  down  with  their  scores  of 
tinkling  bangles!  Could  anything  be  jollier? 

Paul  gave  himself  up  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  this 
dream.  Already  he  seemed  to  have  overcome  every 
obstacle,  and  to  be  reveling  in  the  subdued  but 
sensuous  joys  of  the  Adriatic  queen.  Sometimes  he 
had  fled  in  spirit  to  the  sweet  seclusion  of  the  cloistral 
life  at  San  Lazaro.  Byron  did  it  before  him; — the 
plump,  the  soft-voiced,  mild-visaged  little  Arminians 
will  tell  you  all  about  that,  and  take  immense  pleasure 
in  the  telling  of  it.  Paul  had  also  known  a  fellow- 
writer  who  had  emulated  Byron,  and  had  even 

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distanced  the  Byron  record  in  one  respect  at  least— 
he  had  outstayed  his  lordship  at  San  Lazaro! 

Sometimes  Paul  turned  hermit,  in  imagination, 
and  dwelt  alone  upon  the  long  sands  of  the  melan 
choly  Lido;  not  seeing  Jack,  or  anybody,  save  the 
waiter  at  the  neighboring  restaurant,  for  days  and 
days  together.  It  was  immensely  diverting,  this 
dream-life  that  Paul  led  in  far  distant  Venice.  It 
was  just  the  life  he  loved,  the  ideal  life,  and  it  wasn't 
costing  him  a  cent — no,  not  a  soldo,  to  speak  more  in 
the  Venetian  manner. 

While  he  was  looking  forward  to  the  life  to  come, 
he  had  hardly  time  to  perfect  his  arrangements  for  a 
realization  of  it.  He  was  to  pack  everything  and  store 
it  in  a  bonded  warehouse,  where  it  should  remain 
until  he  had  taken  root  abroad.  Then  he  would  send 
for  it  and  settle  in  the  spot  he  loved  best  of  all,  and 
there  write  and  dream  and  drink  the  wine  of  the 
country,  while  the  Angelus  bells  ringing  thrice  a 
day  awoke  him  to  a  realizing  sense  of  the  fairy-like 
flight  of  time  just  as  they  have  been  doing  for  ages 
past,  and,  let  us  hope,  as  they  will  continue  to  do 
forever  and  forever. 

One  day  he  stopped  dreaming  of  Italy,  and  re 
solved  to  secure  his  engagement  as  a  correspondent. 
Miss  Juno  had  written  him  that  her  sketch  was  nearly 
finished;  that  he  must  hold  himself  in  readiness  to 
answer  her  summons  at  a  moment's  notice.  The 
season  was  advancing;  no  time  was  to  be  lost,  etc. 
Paul  started  at  once  for  the  office  of  his  favorite 
journal;  his  interview  was  not  entirely  satisfactory. 
Editors,  one  and  all,  as  he  called  upon  them  in  suc 
cession,  didn't  seem  especially  anxious  to  send  the 

294 


young  man  abroad  for  an  indefinite  period ;  the  salary 
requested  seemed  exorbitant.  They  each  made  a 
proposition;  all  said:  "This  is  the  best  I  can  do  at 
present;  go  to  the  other  offices,  and  if  you  receive  a 
better  offer  we  advise  you  to  take  it."  This  seemed 
reasonable  enough,  but  as  their  best  rate  was  fifteen 
dollars  for  one  letter  a  week  he  feared  that  even  the 
highly  respectable  second-class  accommodations  of 
all  sorts  to  which  he  must  confine  himself  would  be 
beyond  his  means. 

Was  he  losing  interest  in  the  scheme  which  had 
afforded  him  so  many  hours  of  sweet,  if  not  solid, 
satisfaction?  No,  not  exa6tly.  Poverty  was  more 
pi6luresque  abroad  than  in  his  prosaic  native  land. 
His  song  was  not  quite  so  joyous,  that  was  all;  he 
would  go  to  Italy;  he  would  take  a  smaller  room;  he 
would  eat  at  the  Trattoria  of  the  people;  he  would 
make  studies  of  the  peasant,  the  contadini.  Jack 
had  written,  "There  is  pie  in  Venice  when  we  are 
there;  Mama  knows  how  to  make  pie;  pie  cannot  be 
purchased  elsewhere.  Love  is  the  price  thereof!" 
And  pie  is  very  filling.  Yes,  he  would  go  to  Europe 
on  fifteen  dollars  per  week  and  find  paradise  in  the 
bright  particular  Venetian  Pie! 


After  many  days  a  great  change  came  to  pass. 
Everybody  knew  that  Paul  Clitheroe  had  disappeared 
without  so  much  as  a  "good-by"  to  his  most  intimate 
friends.  Curiosity  was  excited  for  a  little  while,  but 
for  a  little  while  only.  Soon  he  was  forgotten,  or 
remembered  by  no  one  save  those  who  had  known 
and  loved  him  and  who  at  intervals  regretted  him. 

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And  Miss  Juno  ?  Ah,  Miss  Juno,  the  joy  of  Paul's 
young  dreams!  Having  been  launched  successfully 
at  his  hands,  and  hoping  in  her  brave,  off-hand  way 
to  be  of  service  to  him,  she  continued  to  write  as 
much  for  his  sake  as  for  her  own;  she  knew  it  would 
please  him  beyond  compare  were  she  to  achieve  a 
pronounced  literary  success.  He  had  urged  her  to 
write  a  novel.  She  had  lightly  laughed  him  to  scorn — 
and  had  kept  turning  in  her  mind  the  possible  plot 
for  a  tale.  One  day  it  suddenly  took  shape;  the 
whole  thing  seemed  to  her  perfectly  plain  sailing; 
if  Clitheroe  had  launched  her  upon  that  venturesome 
sea,  she  had  suddenly  found  herself  equipped  and 
able  to  sail  without  the  aid  of  any  one. 

She  had  written  to  Paul  of  her  joy  in  this  new 
discovery.  Before  her  loomed  the  misty  outlines 
of  fair  far  islands;  she  was  about  to  set  forth  to  peo 
ple  these.  Oh,  the  joy  of  that!  The  unspeakable 
joy  of  it!  She  spread  all  sail  on  this  voyage  of  dis 
covery — she  asked  for  nothing  more  save  the  prayers 
of  her  old  comrade.  She  longed  to  have  him  near  her 
so  that  together  they  might  discuss  the  situations 
in  her  story,  one  after  another.  If  he  were  only  in 
Venice  they  would  meet  daily  over  their  dinner,  and 
after  dinner  she  would  read  to  him  what  she  had 
written  since  they  last  met;  then  they  would  go  in 
a  gondola  for  a  moonlight  cruise;  of  course  it  was 
always  moonlight  in  Venice!  Would  this  not  be 
delightful  and  just  as  an  all- wise  Providence  meant 
it  should  be  ?  Paul  had  read  something  like  this  in 
the  letters  which  she  used  to  write  him  when  he  was 
divided  against  himself;  when  he  began  to  feel  him 
self  sinking,  without  a  hand  to  help  him.  Venice 

296 


was  out  of  the  question  then;  it  were  vain  for  him  to 
even  dream  of  it. 

So  time  went  on;  Miss  Juno  became  a  slave  of 
the  lamp;  her  work  grew  marvelously  under  her  pen. 
Her  little  people  led  her  a  merry  chase;  they  whis 
pered  in  her  ears  night  and  day;  she  got  no  rest  of 
them — but  rose  again  and  again  to  put  down  the 
clever  things  they  said,  and  so,  almost  before  she 
knew  it,  her  novel  had  grown  into  three  fine  English 
volumes  with  inch-broad  margins,  half-inch  spac- 
ings,  large  type  and  heavy  paper.  She  was  amazed  to 
find  how  important  her  work  had  become. 

Fortune  favored  her.  She  found  a  publisher  who 
was  ready  to  bring  out  her  book  at  once;  two  sets 
of  proofs  were  forwarded  to  her;  these  she  corrected 
with  deep  delight,  returning  one  to  her  London  pub 
lisher  and  sending  one  to  America,  where  another 
publisher  was  ready  to  issue  the  work  simultaneously 
with  the  English  print. 

It  made  its  appearance  under  a  pen-name  in  Eng 
land — anonymously  in  America.  What  curiosity  it 
awakened  may  be  judged  by  the  instantaneous  suc 
cess  of  the  work  in  both  countries:  Tauchnitz  at 
once  added  it  to  his  fascinating  list;  the  French  and 
German  translators  negotiated  for  the  right  to  run 
it  as  a  serial  in  Paris  and  Berlin  journals.  Consid 
erable  curiosity  was  awakened  concerning  the  iden 
tity  of  the  authorship,  and  the  personal  paragraphers 
made  a  thousand  conjectures,  all  of  which  helped  the 
sale  of  the  novel  immensely  and  amused  Miss  Juno 
and  her  confidants  beyond  expression. 

All  this  was  known  to  Clitheroe  before  he  had 
reached  the  climax  that  forced  him  to  the  wall.  He 

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tf  'Fiction 


had  written  to  Miss  Juno;  and  he  had  called  her 
"Jack"  as  of  old,  but  he  felt  and  she  realized  that 
he  felt  that  the  conditions  were  changed.  The  at 
mosphere  of  the  rose-garden  was  gone  forever;  the 
hopes  and  aspirations  that  were  so  easy  and  so  airy 
then,  had  folded  their  wings  like  bruised  butterflies, 
or  faded  like  the  flowers.  She  resolved  to  wait  until 
he  had  recovered  his  senses  and  then  perhaps  he 
would  come  to  Venice  and  to  them — which  in  her 
estimation  amounted  to  one  and  the  same  thing. 

She  wrote  to  him  no  more;  he  had  not  written  her 
for  weeks,  save  only  the  few  lines  of  congratulation 
on  the  success  of  her  novel,  and  to  thank  her  for  the 
author's  copy  she  had  sent  him:  the  three- volume 
London  edition  with  a  fond  inscription  on  the  fly 
leaf — a  line  in  each  volume.  This  was  the  end  of 
all  that. 

Once  more  she  wrote,  but  not  to  Clitheroe;  she 
wrote  to  a  friend  she  had  known  when  she  was  in  the 
far  West,  one  who  knew  Paul  well  and  was  always 
eager  for  news  of  him. 

The  letter,  or  a  part  of  it,  ran  as  follows: 

"  VENICE,  ITALY,  June  — ,  18 — . 

"  Of  course  such  weather  as  this  is  not  to  be  shut 
out-of-doors;  we  feed  on  it;  we  drink  it  in;  we  bathe 
in  it,  body  and  soul.  Ah,  my  friend,  know  a  June  in 
Venice  before  you  die!  Don't  dare  to  die  until  you 
have  become  saturated  with  the  aerial- aquatic  beauty 
of  this  Divine  Sea-City! 

Oh,  I  was  about  to  tell  you  something  when  the 
charms  of  this  Syren  made  me  half-delirious  and  of 
course  I  forgot  all  else  in  life — I  always  do  so.  Well, 

298 


Miss  Juno 


as  we  leave  in  a  few  days  for  the  deleclable  Dolo 
mites,  we  are  making  our  rounds  of  P.  P.  C.'s, — that 
is,  we  are  revisiting  every  nook  and  corner  in  the 
lagoon  so  dear  to  us.  We  invariably  do  this;  it  is  the 
most  delicious  leave-taking  imaginable.  If  I  were 
only  Niobe  I'd  water  these  shores  with  tears — I'm 
sure  I  would;  but  you  know  I  never  weep;  I  never 
did;  I  don't  know  how;  there  is  not  a  drop  of  brine 
in  my  whole  composition. 

"Dear  me!  how  I  do  rattle  on — but  you  know  my 
moods  and  will  make  due  allowance  for  what  might 
strike  the  cold,  unfeeling  world  as  being  garrulity. 

"We  had  resolved  to  visit  that  most  enchanting  of 
all  Italian  shrines,  San  Francisco  del  Deserto.  We 
had  not  been  there  for  an  age;  you  know  it  is  rather 
a  long  pull  over,  and  one  waits  for  the  most  perfect 
hour  when  one  ventures  upon  the  outskirts  of  the 
lagoon. 

"Oh,  the  unspeakable  loveliness  of  that  perfect  day! 
The  mellowing  haze  that  veiled  the  water;  the  heavenly 
blue  of  the  sea,  a  mirror  of  the  sky,  and  floating  in 
between  the  two,  so  that  one  could  not  be  quite  sure 
whether  it  slumbered  in  the  lap  of  the  sea  or  hung 
upon  the  bosom  of  the  sky,  that  ideal  summer 
island — San  Francisco  del  Deserto. 

"You  know  it  is  only  a  few  acres  in  extent — not 
more  than  six,  I  fancy,  and  four-fifths  of  it  are  walled 
about  with  walls  that  stand  knee-deep  in  sea-grasses. 
Along,  and  above  it,  are  thrust  the  tapering  tops  of 
those  highly  decorative  cypresses  without  which  Italy 
would  not  be  herself  at  all.  There  is  such  a  mon 
astery  there — an  ideal  one,  with  cloister,  and  sun 
dial,  and  marble-curbed  well,  and  all  that;  at  least  so 

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The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


I  am  told;  we  poor  feminine  creatures  are  not  per 
mitted  to  cross  the  thresholds  of  these  Holy  Houses. 
This  reminds  me  of  a  remark  I  heard  made  by  a  very 
clever  woman  who  wished  to  have  a  glimpse  of  the 
interior  of  that  impossible  Monte  Casino  on  the 
mountain  top  between  Rome  and  Naples.  Of  course 
she  was  refused  admission;  she  turned  upon  the  poor 
Benedictine,  who  was  only  obeying  orders — it  is  a 
rule  of  the  house,  you  know — and  said,  'Why  do 
you  refuse  me  admission  to  this  shrine  ?  Is  it  because 
I  am  of  the  same  sex  as  the  mother  of  your  God  ? ' 
But  she  didn't  get  in  for  all  that.  Neither  have  I 
crossed  the  threshold  of  San  Francisco  del  Deserto, 
but  I  have  wandered  upon  the  green  in  front  of  the 
little  chapel;  and  sat  under  the  trees  in  contempla 
tion  of  the  sea  and  wished — yes,  really  and  truly 
wished — that  I  were  a  barefooted  Franciscan  friar 
with  nothing  to  do  but  look  picturesque  in  such  a 
terrestrial  paradise. 

"  What  do  you  think  happened  when  we  were  there 
the  other  day  ?  Now  at  last  I  am  coming  to  it.  We 
were  all  upon  the  Campo  in  front  of  the  chapel — 
Violet,  Eugene  and  I;  the  Angelus  had  just  rung; 
it  was  the  hour  of  all  hours  in  one's  lifetime;  the 
deepening  twilight — we  had  the  moon  to  light  us  on 
our  homeward  way — the  inexpressible  loveliness  of 
the  atmosphere,  the  unutterable  peace,  the  unspeak 
able  serenity — the  repose  in  nature — I  cannot  begin 
to  express  myself! 

"  Out  of  the  chapel  came  the  Father  Superior.  He 
knows  us  very  well,  for  we  have  often  visited  the 
island;  he  always  offers  us  some  refreshment,  a  cup 
of  mass  wine,  or  a  dish  of  fruit,  and  so  he  did  on  this 

300 


Miss  Juno 


occasion.  We  were  in  no  hurry  to  leave  the  shore 
and  so  accepted  his  invitation  to  be  seated  under 
the  trees  while  he  ordered  the  repast. 

"Presently  he  returned  and  was  shortly  followed 
by  a  young  friar  whom  we  had  never  seen  before; 
there  are  not  many  of  them  there — a  dozen  perhaps— 
and  their  faces  are  more  or  less  familiar  to  us,  for 
even  we  poor  women  may  kneel  without  the  gratings 
in  their  little  chapel,  and  so  we  have  learned  to  know 
the  faces  we  have  seen  there  in  the  choir.  But  this 
one  was  quite  new  to  us  and  so  striking;  his  eyes  were 
never  raised;  he  offered  us  a  dish  of  bread  and  olives, 
while  the  abbot  poured  our  wine,  and  the  very 
moment  we  had  served  ourselves  he  quietly  with 
drew. 

"I  could  think  of  but  one  thing — indeed  we  all 
thought  of  it  at  the  same  moment — 'tis  Browning's — 

' '  What's  become  of  Waring 
Since  he  gave  us  all  the  slip? '  " 

"You  know  the  lines  well  enough.  Why  did  we 
think  of  it  ? — because  we  were  all  startled,  so  startled 
that  the  abbot  who  usually  sees  us  to  our  gondola, 
made  his  abrupt  adieus,  on  some  slight  pretext,  and 
the  door  of  the  monastery  was  bolted  fast. 

"Oh,  me!  How  long  it  takes  to  tell  a  little  tale- 
to  be  sure!  We  knew  that  face,  the  face  of  the  young 
friar;  we  knew  the  hand — it  was  unmistakable;  we 
have  all  agreed  upon  it  and  are  ready  to  swear  to  it 
on  our  oaths!  That  novice  was  none  other  than  Paul 
Clitheroe!" 


301 


A  LITTLE  SAVAGE 
GENTLEMAN 

BY 

ISOBEL  STRONG 


Reprinted  from  Scnbner's  Magazine 
by  permission 


A  LITTLE  SAVAGE  GENTLEMAN 

F  YOU  want  a  child  as  badly  as  all 
that,"  my  brother  said,  "why  not 
adopt  a  chief's  son,  some  one  who 
is  handsome  and  well-born,  and  will 
be  a  credit  to  you,  instead  of  crying 
your  eyes  out  over  a  little  common  brat 
who  is  an  ungrateful  cub,  and  ugly  into  the  bargain  ?" 
I  wasn't  particularly  fond  of  the  "common  brat," 
but  I  had  grown  used  to  tending  him,  bandaging  his 
miserable  little  foot  and  trying  to  make  his  lot  easier 
to  bear;  and  he  had  been  spirited  away.  One  may 
live  long  in  Samoa  without  understanding  the  whys 
and  wherefores.  His  mother  may  have  been  jealous 
of  my  care  of  the  child  and  carried  him  away  in  the 
night;  or  the  clan  to  which  he  belonged  may  have 
sent  for  him,  though  his  reputed  father  was  our 
assistant  cook.  At  any  rate,  he  had  gone — departed 
as  completely  and  entirely  as  though  he  had  van 
ished  into  thin  air,  and  I,  sitting  on  the  steps  of  the 
veranda,  gave  way  to  tears. 

Two  days  later,  as  I  hastened  across  the  court 
yard,  I  turned  the  corner  suddenly,  nearly  falling 
over  a  small  Samoan  boy,  who  stood  ere  61  in  a  gal 
lant  pose  before  the  house,  leaning  upon  a  long  stick 
of  sugar-cane,  as  though  it  were  a  spear. 

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Fiction 


"Who  are  you?"  I  asked,  in  the  native  language. 

"I  am  your  son,"  was  the  surprising  reply. 

"And  what  is  your  name?" 

"Pola,"  he  said.  "Pola,  of  Tanugamanono,  and 
my  mother  is  the  white  chief  lady,  Teuila  of  Vailima." 

He  was  a  beautiful  creature,  of  an  even  tint  of  light 
bronze-brown;  his  slender  body  reflected  the  polish 
of  scented  cocoanut  oil,  the  tiny  garment  he  called 
his  lava-lava  fastened  at  the  waist  was  coquettishly 
kilted  above  one  knee.  He  wore  a  necklace  of  scarlet 
berries  across  his  shoulders,  and  a  bright  red  hibiscus 
flower  stuck  behind  his  ear.  On  his  round,  smooth 
cheek  a  single  rose-leaf  hid  the  dimple.  His  large 
black  eyes  looked  up  at  me  with  an  expression  of 
terror,  overcome  by  pure  physical  courage.  From 
the  top  of  his  curly  head  to  the  soles  of  his  high- 
arched  slender  foot  he  looked  tama'alii — high-bred. 
To  all  my  inquiries  he  answered  in  purest  high- 
chief  Samoan  that  he  was  my  son. 

My  brother  came  to  the  rescue  with  explanations. 
Taking  pity  on  me,  he  had  gone  to  our  village  (as  we 
called  Tanugamanono)  and  adopted  the  chief's  sec 
ond  son  in  my  name,  and  here  he  was  come  to  present 
himself  in  person. 

I  shook  hands  with  him,  a  ceremony  he  performed 
very  gracefully  with  great  dignity.  Then  he  offered 
me  the  six  feet  of  sugar-cane,  with  the  remark  that 
it  was  a  small,  trifling  gift,  unworthy  of  my  high- 
chief  notice.  I  accepted  it  with  a  show  of  great  joy 
and  appreciation,  though  by  a  turn  of  the  head  one 
could  see  acres  of  sugar-cane  growing  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river. 

There  was  an  element  of  embarrassment  in  the 

306 


possession  of  this  charming  creature.  I  could  not 
speak  the  Samoan  language  very  well  at  that  time, 
and  saw,  by  his  vague  but  polite  smile,  that  much  of 
my  conversation  was  incomprehensible  to  him.  His 
language  to  me  was  so  extremely  "high-chief"  that 
I  couldn't  understand  more  than  three  words  in  a 
sentence.  What  made  the  situation  still  more  poig 
nant  was  that  look  of  repressed  fear  glinting  in  the 
depths  of  his  black  velvety  eyes. 

I  took  him  by  the  hand  (that  trembled  slightly  in 
mine,  though  he  walked  boldly  along  with  me)  and 
led  him  about  the  house,  thinking  the  sight  of  all 
the  wonders  of  Vailima  might  divert  his  mind. 
When  I  threw  open  the  door  of  the  hall,  with  its 
pictures  and  statues,  waxed  floor  and  glitter  of  silver 
on  the  sideboard,  Pola  made  the  regulation  quota 
tion  from  Scripture,  "And  behold  the  half  has  not 
been  told  me." 

He  went  quite  close  to  the  tiger-skin,  with  the  glass 
eyes  and  big  teeth.  "It  is  not  living?"  he  asked, 
and  when  I  assured  him  it  was  dead  he  remarked  that 
it  was  a  large  pussy,  and  then  added,  gravely,  that 
he  supposed  the  forests  of  London  were  filled  with 
these  animals. 

He  held  my  hand  quite  tightly  going  up  the  stairs, 
and  I  realized  then  that  he  could  never  have  mounted 
a  staircase  before.  Indeed,  everything  in  the  house, 
even  chairs  and  tables,  books  and  pidlures,  were  new 
and  strange  to  this  little  savage  gentleman. 

I  took  him  to  my  room,  where  I  had  a  number  of 
letters  to  write.  He  sat  on  the  floor  at  my  feet  very 
obediently  while  I  went  on  with  my  work.  Looking 
down  a  few  minutes  later  I  saw  that  he  had  fallen 

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asleep,  lying  on  a  white  rug  in  a  childish,  graceful 
attitude,  and  I  realized  again  his  wild  beauty  and 
charm. 

Late  in  the  day,  as  it  began  to  grow  dark,  I  asked 
Pola  if  he  did  not  want  to  go  home. 

"No,  Teuila,"  he  answered,  bravely. 

"But  you  will  be  my  boy  just  the  same,"  I  ex 
plained.  "Only  you  see  Turn au  (his  real  mother) 
will  be  lonely  at  first.  So  you  can  sleep  at  the  village 
and  come  and  see  me  during  the  day." 

His  eyes  lit  up  with  that  and  the  first  smile  of  the 
day  overspread  his  face,  showing  the  whitest  teeth 
imaginable. 

It  was  not  long  before  he  was  perfectly  at  home  in 
Vailima.  He  would  arrive  in  the  morning  early,  at 
tended  by  a  serving-man  of  his  family,  who  walked 
meekly  in  the  young  chief's  footsteps,  carrying  the 
usual  gift  for  me.  Sometimes  it  was  sugar-cane,  or 
a  wreath  woven  by  the  village  girls,  or  a  single  fish 
wrapped  in  a  piece  of  banana-leaf,  or  a  few  fresh 
water  prawns,  or  even  a  bunch  of  wayside  flowers; 
my  little  son  seldom  came  empty-handed. 

It  was  Pola  who  really  taught  me  the  Samoan 
language.  Ordinarily  the  natives  cannot  simplify 
their  remarks  for  foreigners,  but  Pola  invented  a  sort 
of  Samoan  baby-talk  for  me;  sometimes,  if  I  could 
not  understand,  he  would  shake  me  with  his  fierce 
little  brown  hands,  crying,  "Stupid,  stupid!"  But 
generally  he  was  extremely  patient  with  me,  trying 
a  sentence  in  half  a  dozen  different  ways,  with  his 
bright  eyes  fixed  eagerly  on  my  face,  and  when  the 
sense  of  what  he  said  dawned  upon  me  and  I  repeated 
it  to  prove  that  I  understood,  his  own  countenance 

308 


would  light  up  with  an  expression  of  absolute  pride 
and  triumph.  "Good!"  he  would  say,  approvingly. 
"Great  is  your  high-chief  wisdom!" 

Once  we  spent  a  happy  afternoon  together  in  the 
forest  picking  up  queer  land-shells,  bright  berries 
and  curious  flowers,  while  Pola  dug  up  a  number  of 
plants  by  the  roots.  I  asked  him  the  next  day  what 
he  had  done  with  the  beautiful  red  flowers.  His 
reply  was  beyond  me,  so  I  shook  my  head.  He 
looked  at  me  anxiously  for  a  moment  with  that  wor 
ried  expression  that  so  often  crossed  his  face  in  con 
versation  with  me,  and,  patting  the  floor,  scraped  up 
an  imaginary  hole,  "They  sit  down  in  the  dusty," 
he  said  in  baby  Samoan.  "Where?"  I  asked.  "In 
front  of  Tumau."  And  then  I  understood  that  he 
had  planted  them  in  the  ground  before  his  mother's 
house. 

Another  time  he  came  up  all  laughter  and  excite 
ment  to  tell  of  an  adventure. 

"Your  brother,"  he  said,  "the  high-chief  Loia, 
he  of  the  four  eyes  (eye-glasses),  came  riding  by  the 
village  as  I  was  walking  up  to  Vailima.  He  offered 
me  a  ride  on  his  chief-horse  and  gave  me  his  chief- 
hand.  I  put  my  foot  on  the  stirrup,  and  just  as  I 
jumped  the  horse  shied,  and,  as  I  had  hold  of  the 
high-chief  Loia,  we  both  fell  off  into  the  road  palasi." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "you  both  fell  off.  That  was  very 
funny." 

"Palasi!"  he  reiterated. 

But  here  I  looked  doubtful.  Pola  repeated  his 
word  several  times  as  though  the  very  sound  ought 
to  convey  some  idea  to  my  bemuddled  brain,  and 
then  a  bright  idea  struck  him.  I  heard  his  bare  feet 

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pattering  swiftly  down  the  stairs.  He  came  flying 
back,  still  laughing,  and  laid  a  heavy  dictionary  in 
my  lap.  I  hastily  turned  the  leaves,  Pola  questing 
in  each  one  like  an  excited  little  dog,  till  I  found  the 
definition  of  his  word,  "to  fall  squash  like  a  ripe 
fruit  on  the  ground." 

"Palasi!"  he  cried,  triumphantly,  when  he  saw  I 
understood,  making  a  gesture  downward  with  both 
hands,  the  while  laughing  heartily.  "We  both  fell 
off  palasi!" 

It  was  through  Pola  that  I  learned  all  the  news  of 
Tanugamanono.  He  would  curl  up  on  the  floor  at 
my  feet  as  I  sat  in  my  room  sewing,  and  pour  forth 
an  endless  stream  of  village  gossip.  How  Mata,  the 
native  parson,  had  whipped  his  daughter  for  going 
to  a  picnic  on  Sunday  and  drinking  a  glass  of  beer. 

"Her  father  went  whack!  whack!"  Pola  illustrated 
the  scene  with  gusto,  "and  Maua  cried,  ah!  ah!  But 
the  village  says  Mata  is  right,  for  we  must  not  let 
the  white  man's  evil  come  near  us." 

"Evil?"  I  said;  "what  evil?" 

"Drink,"  said  Pola,  solemnly. 

Then  he  told  how  "the  ladies  of  Tanugamanono" 
bought  a  pig  of  Mr.  B.,  a  trader,  each  contributing 
a  dollar  until  forty  dollars  were  collected.  There 
was  to  be  a  grand  feast  among  the  ladies  on  account 
of  the  choosing  of  a  maid  or  taupo,  the  young  girl 
who  represents  the  village  on  all  state  occasions. 
When  the  pig  came  it  turned  out  to  be  an  old  boar, 
so  tough  and  rank  it  could  not  be  eaten.  The  ladies 
were  much  ashamed  before  their  guests,  and  asked 
the  white  man  for  another  pig,  but  he  only  laughed 
at  them.  He  had  their  money,  so  he  did  not  care, 

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A  Little  Savage  Gentleman 


"That  was  very,  very  bad  of  him,"  I  exclaimed, 
indignantly. 

"It  is  the  way  of  white  people,"  said  Pola,  philo 
sophically. 

It  was  through  my  little  chief  that  we  learned  of  a 
bit  of  fine  hospitality.  It  seems  that  pigs  were  scarce 
in  the  village,  so  each  house-chief  pledged  himself 
to  refrain  from  killing  one  of  them  for  six  months. 
Any  one  breaking  this  rule  agreed  to  give  over  his 
house  to  be  looted  by  the  village. 

Pola  came  up  rather  late  one  morning,  and  told  me, 
hilariously,  of  the  fun  they  had  had  looting  Tupuola's 
house. 

"But  Tupuola  is  a  friend  of  ours,"  I  said.  "I 
don't  like  to  hear  of  all  his  belongings  being  scat 
tered." 

"It  is  all  right,"  Pola  explained.  "Tupuola  said 
to  the  village,  'Come  and  loot.  I  have  broken  the 
law  and  I  will  pay  the  forfeit." 

"How  did  he  break  the  law?"  I  asked. 

"When  the  high-chief  Loia,  your  brother  of  the 
four  eyes,  stopped  the  night  at  Tanugamanono,  on 
his  way  to  the  shark  fishing,  he  stayed  with  Tupuola, 
so  of  course  it  was  chiefly  to  kill  a  pig  in  his  honor." 

"But  it  was  against  the  law.  My  brother  would 
not  have  liked  it,  and  Tupuola  must  have  felt  badly 
to  know  his  house  was  to  be  looted." 

"He  would  have  felt  worse,"  said  Pola,  "to  have 
a&ed  unchiefly  to  a  friend." 

We  never  would  have  known  of  the  famine  in 
Tanugamanono  if  it  had  not  been  for  Pola.  The 
hurricane  had  blown  off  all  the  young  nuts  from  the 
cocoanut  palms  and  the  fruit  from  the  breadfruit 

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trees,  while  the  taro  was  not  yet  ripe.  We  passed 
the  village  daily.  The  chief  was  my  brother's  dear 
friend;  the  girls  often  came  up  to  decorate  the  place 
for  a  dinner  party,  but  we  had  no  hint  of  any  distress 
in  the  village. 

One  morning  I  gave  Pola  two  large  ship's  biscuits 
from  the  pantry. 

"Be  not  angry,"  said  Pola,  "but  I  prefer  to  carry 
these  home." 

"Eat  them,"  I  said,  "and  I  will  give  you  more." 

Before  leaving  that  night  he  came  to  remind  me 
of  this.  I  was  swinging  in  a  hammock  reading  a 
novel  when  Pola  came  to  kiss  my  hand  and  bid  me 
good  night. 

,"  I  said,  "Tahfa." 

a,"   Pola  replied,   "may  you   sleep;"   and 
then  he  added,  "Be  not  angry,  but  the  biscuits '' 

"Are  you  hungry?"  I  asked.  "Didn't  you  have 
your  dinner?" 

"Oh,  yes,  plenty  of  pea-soupo"  (a  general  name 
for  anything  in  tins);  "but  you  said,  in  your  high- 
chief  kindness,  that  if  I  ate  the  two  biscuits  you 
would  give  me  more  to  take  home." 

"And  you  ate  them?" 

He  hesitated  a  perceptible  moment,  and  then  said : 

"Yes,  I  ate  them." 

He  looked  so  glowing  and  sweet,  leaning  forward 
to  beg  a  favor,  that  I  suddenly  pulled  him  to  me  by 
his  bare,  brown  shoulders  for  a  kiss.  He  fell  against 
the  hammock  and  two  large  round  ship's  biscuits 
slipped  from  under  his  lava-lava. 

"Oh,  Pola!"  I  cried,  reproachfully.  It  cut  me 
to  the  heart  that  he  should  lie  to  me, 

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A  Little  Savage  Gentleman 


He  picked  them  up  in  silence,  repressing  the  tears 
that  stood  in  his  big  black  eyes,  and  turned  to  go.  I 
felt  there  was  something  strange  in  this,  one  of  those 
mysterious  Samoan  affairs  that  had  so  often  baffled 
me. 

"I  will  give  you  two  more  biscuits,"  I  said,  quietly, 
"if  you  will  explain  why  you  told  a  wicked  lie  and 
pained  the  heart  that  loved  you." 

''Teuila,"  he  cried,  anxiously,  "I  love  you.  I 
would  not  pain  your  heart  for  all  the  world.  But 
they  are  starving  in  the  village.  My  father,  the  chief, 
divides  the  food,  so  that  each  child  and  old  person 
and  all  shall  share  alike,  and  today  there  was  only 
green  baked  bananas,  two  for  each,  and  tonight  when 
I  return  there  will  be  again  a  division  of  one  for  each 
member  of  the  village.  It  seems  hard  that  I  should 
come  here  and  eat  and  eat,  and  my  brother  and  my 
two  little  sisters,  and  the  good  Tumau  also,  should 
have  only  one  banana.  So  I  thought  I  would  say 
to  you,  'Behold,  I  have  eaten  the  two  biscuits,'  and 
then  you  would  give  me  two  more  and  that  would  be 
enough  for  one  each  to  my  two  sisters  and  Tumau 
and  my  brother,  who  is  older  than  I." 

That  night  my  brother  went  down  to  the  village 
and  interviewed  the  chief.  It  was  all  true,  as  Pola 
had  said,  only  they  had  been  too  proud  to  mention 
it.  Mr.  Stevenson  sent  bags  of  rice  and  kegs  of 
beef  to  the  village,  and  gave  them  permission  to  dig 
for  edible  roots  in  our  forest,  so  they  were  able  to 
tide  over  until  the  taro  and  yams  were  ripe. 

Pola  always  spoke  of  Vailima  as  "our  place,"  and 
Mr.  Stevenson  as  "my  chief."  I  had  given  him  a 
little  brown  pony  that  exactly  matched  his  own  skin. 

313 


A  missionary,  meeting  him  in  the  forest  road  as  he 
was  galloping  along  like  a  young  centaur,  asked, 
,"Who  are  you?" 

"I,"  answered  Pola,  reining  in  his  pony  with  a 
gallant  air,  "am  one  of  the  Vailima  men!" 

He  proved,  however,  that  he  considered  himself  a 
true  Samoan  by  a  conversation  we  had  together  once 
when  we  were  walking  down  to  Apia.  We  passed  a 
new  house  where  a  number  of  half-caste  carpenters 
were  briskly  at  work. 

"See  how  clever  these  men  are,  Pola,"  I  said, 
"building  the  white  man's  house.  When  you  get 
older  perhaps  I  will  have  you  taught  carpentering, 
that  you  may  build  houses  and  make  money." 

"Me?"  asked  Pola,  surprised. 

"Yes,"  I  replied.  "Don't  you  think  that  would  be 
a  good  idea?" 

"I  am  the  son  of  a  chief,"  said  Pola. 

"I  know,"  I  said,  "that  your  highness  is  a  very 
great  personage,  but  all  the  same  it  is  good  to  know 
how  to  make  money.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  be  a 
carpenter?" 

"No,"  said  Pola,  scornfully,  adding,  with  a  wave 
of  his  arm  that  took  in  acres  of  breadfruit  trees, 
banana  groves,  and  taro  patches,  "Why  should  1 
work?  All  this  land  belongs  to  me." 

Once,  when  Pola  had  been  particularly  adorable, 
I  told  him,  in  a  burst  of  affedlion,  that  he  could  have 
anything  in  the  world  he  wanted,  only  begging  him 
to  name  it. 

He  smiled,  looked  thoughtful  for  an  instant,  and 
then  answered,  that  of  all  things  in  the  world,  he 
would  like  ear-rings,  like  those  the  sailors  wear. 

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A  LittleSavage  Gentleman 


I  bought  him  a  pair  the  next  time  I  went  to  town. 
Then,  armed  with  a  cork  and  a  needleful  of  white 
silk,  I  called  Pola,  and  asked  if  he  wanted  the  ear 
rings  badly  enough  to  endure  the  necessary  operation. 

He  smiled  and  walked  up  to  me. 

44  Now,  this  is  going  to  hurt,  Pola,"  I  said. 

He  stood  perfectly  straight  when  I  pushed  the 
needle  through  his  ear  and  cut  off  a  little  piece  of 
silk.  I  looked  anxiously  in  his  face  as  he  turned  his 
head  for  me  to  pierce  the  other  one.  I  was  so  nervous 
that  my  hands  trembled. 

"Are  you  sure  it  does  not  hurt,  Pola,  my  pigeon?" 
I  asked,  and  I  have  never  forgotten  his  answer. 

"My  father  is  a  soldier,"  he  said. 

Pola's  dress  was  a  simple  garment,  a  square  of 
white  muslin  hemmed  by  his  adopted  mother.  Like 
all  Samoans,  he  was  naturally  very  clean,  going  with 
the  rest  of  the  "  Vailima  men"  to  swim  in  the  water 
fall  twice  a  day.  He  would  wash  his  hair  in  the  juice 
of  wild  oranges,  clean  his  teeth  with  the  inside  husk 
of  the  cocoanut,  and,  putting  on  a  fresh  lava-lava, 
would  wash  out  the  discarded  one  in  the  river,  lay 
ing  it  out  in  the  sunshine  to  dry.  He  was  always 
decorated  with  flowers  in  some  way — a  necklace  of 
jessamine  buds,  pointed  red  peppers,  or  the  scarlet 
fruit  of  the  pandanas.  Little  white  boys  looked 
naked  without  their  clothes,  but  Pola  in  a  strip  of 
muslin,  with  his  wreath  of  flowers,  or  sea-shells, 
some  ferns  twisted  about  one  ankle,  perhaps,  or  a 
boar's  tusk  fastened  to  his  left  arm  with  strands  of 
horse-hair,  looked  completely,  even  handsomely, 
dressed. 

He  was  not  too  proud  to  lend  a  helping  hand  at 

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any  work  going — setting  the  table,  polishing  the  floor 
of  the  hall  or  the  brass  handles  of  the  old  cabinet, 
leading  the  horses  to  water,  carrying  pails  for  the 
milkmen,  helping  the  cook  in  the  kitchen,  the  butler 
in  the  pantry,  or  the  cowboy  in  the  fields;  holding 
skeins  of  wool  for  Mr.  Stevenson's  mother,  or  trotting 
beside  the  lady  of  the  house,  "Tamaitai,"  as  they 
all  called  her,  carrying  seeds  or  plants  for  her  garden. 
When  my  brother  went  out  with  a  number  of  natives 
laden  with  surveying  implements,  Pol  a  only  stopped 
long  enough  to  beg  for  a  cane-knife  before  he  was 
leading  the  party.  If  Mr.  Stevenson  called  for  his 
horse  and  started  to  town  it  was  always  Pola  who 
flew  to  open  the  gate  for  him,  waving  a  "  Talofa!" 
and  "Good  luck  to  the  traveling!" 

The  Samoans  are  not  reserved,  like  the  Indians, 
or  haughty,  like  the  Arabs.  They  are  a  cheerful, 
lively  people,  who  keenly  enjoy  a  joke,  laughing  at 
the  slightest  provocation.  Pola  bubbled  over  with 
fun,  and  his  voice  could  be  heard  chattering  and 
singing  gaily  at  any  hour  of  the  day.  He  made  up 
little  verses  about  me,  which  he  sang  to  the  graceful 
gestures  of  the  Siva  or  native  dance,  showing  un- 
affe6led  delight  when  commended.  He  cried  out 
with  joy  and  admiration  when  he  first  heard  a  hand- 
organ,  and  was  excitedly  happy  when  allowed  to  turn 
the  handle.  I  gave  him  a  box  of  tin  soldiers,  which 
he  played  with  for  hours  in  my  room.  He  would 
arrange  them  on  the  floor,  talking  earnestly  to  him 
self  in  Samoan. 

"These  are  brave  brown  men,"  he  would  mutter. 
"They  are  fighting  for  Mata'afa.  Boom!  Boom! 
These  are  white  men.  They  are  fighting  the 

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Samoans.  Pouf !"  And  with  a  wave  of  his  arm  he 
knocked  down  a  whole  battalion,  with  the  scornful 
remark,  "All  white  men  are  cowards." 

After  Mr.  Stevenson's  death  so  many  of  his  Sa- 
moan  friends  begged  for  his  photograph  that  we 
sent  to  Sydney  for  a  supply,  which  was  soon  ex 
hausted.  One  afternoon  Pola  came  in  and  remarked, 
in  a  very  hurt  and  aggrieved  manner,  that  he  had 
been  neglected  in  the  way  of  photographs. 

"  But  your  father,  the  chief,  has  a  large  fine  one." 

"  True,"  said  Pola.  "  But  that  is  not  mine.  I  have 
the  box  presented  to  me  by  your  high-chief  goodness. 
It  has  a  little  cover,  and  there  I  wish  to  put  the  sun- 
shadow  of  Tusitala,  the  beloved  chief  whom  we  all 
revere,  but  I  more  than  the  others  because  he  was 
the  head  of  my  clan." 

"To  be  sure,"  I  said,  and  looked  about  for  a  photo 
graph.  I  found  a  picture  cut  from  a  weekly  paper, 
one  I  remember  that  Mr.  Stevenson  himself  had 
particularly  disliked.  He  would  have  been  pleased 
had  he  seen  the  scornful  way  Pola  threw  the  pidlure 
on  the  floor. 

"I  will  not  have  that!"  he  cried.  "It  is  pig-faced. 
It  is  not  the  shadow  of  pur  chief."  He  leaned  against 
the  door  and  wept. 

"I  have  nothing  else,  Pola,"  I  protested.  "Truly, 
if  I  had  another  picture  of  Tusitala  I  would  give  it 
to  you." 

He  brightened  up  at  once.  "There  is  the  one  in 
the  smoking-room,"  he  said,  "where  he  walks  back 
and  forth.  That  pleases  me,  for  it  looks  like  him." 
He  referred  to  an  oil  painting  of  Mr.  Stevenson  by 
Sargent.  I  explained  that  I  could  not  give  him  that. 

317 


( Then  I  will  take  the  round  one,"  he  said,  "of  tin." 
This  last  was  the  bronze  bas-relief  by  St.  Gaudens. 
I  must  have  laughed  involuntarily,  for  he  went  out 
deeply  hurt.  Hearing  a  strange  noise  in  the  hall  an 
hour  or  so  later,  I  opened  the  door,  and  discovered 
Pola  lying  on  his  face,  weeping  bitterly. 

:4What  are  you  crying  about?"  I  asked. 

"The  shadow,  the  shadow,"  he  sobbed.  "I  want 
the  sun-shadow  of  Tusitala." 

I  knocked  at  my  mother's  door  across  the  hall,  and 
at  the  sight  of  that  tear-stained  face  her  heart  melted, 
and  he  was  given  the  last  photograph  we  had,  which 
he  wrapped  in  a  banana-leaf,  tying  it  carefully  with 
a  ribbon  of  grass. 

We  left  Samoa  after  Mr.  Stevenson's  death,  stay 
ing  away  for  more  than  a  year.  Pola  wrote  me  letters 
by  every  mail  in  a  large  round  hand,  but  they  were 
too  conventional  to  bear  any  impress  of  his  mind. 
He  referred  to  our  regretted  separation,  exhorting 
me  to  stand  fast  in  the  high-chief  will  of  the  Lord, 
and,  with  his  love  to  each  member  of  the  family, 
mentioned  by  name  and  title,  he  prayed  that  I  might 
live  long,  sleep  well,  and  not  forget  Pola,  my  un 
worthy  servant. 

When  we  returned  to  Samoa  we  were  up  at  dawn, 
on  shipboard,  watching  the  horizon  for  the  first 
faint  cloud  that  floats  above  the  island  of  Upulu. 
Already  the  familiar  perfume  came  floating  over  the 
waters — that  sweet  blending  of  many  odors,  of  cocoa- 
nut-oil  and  baking  breadfruit,  of  jessamine  and 
gardenia.  It  smelt  of  home  to  us,  leaning  over  the 
rail  and  watching.  First  a  cloud,  then  a  shadow 
growing  more  and  more  distinct  until  we  saw  the 

318 


A  Little  Savage  Gentleman 


outline  of  the  island.  Then,  as  we  drew  nearer,  the 
deep  purple  of  the  distant  hills,  the  green  of  the  rich 
forests,  and  the  silvery  ribbons  where  the  waterfalls 
reflect  the  sunshine. 

Among  the  fleet  of  boats  skimming  out  to  meet  us 
was  one  far  ahead  of  the  others,  a  lone  canoe  pro 
pelled  by  a  woman,  with  a  single  figure  standing  in 
the  prow.  As  the  steamer  drew  near  I  made  out  the 
figure  of  Pola,  dressed  in  wreaths  and  flowers  in 
honor  of  my  return.  As  the  anchor  went  down  in 
the  bay  of  Apia  and  the  custom-house  officer  started 
to  board,  I  called  out,  begging  him  to  let  the  child 
come  on  first.  He  drew  aside.  The  canoe  shot  up 
to  the  gangway,  and  Pola,  all  in  his  finery  of  fresh 
flowers,  ran  up  the  gangway  and  stepped  forth  on 
the  deck.  The  passengers  drew  back  before  the 
strange  little  figure,  but  he  was  too  intent  upon  find 
ing  me  to  notice  them. 

"Teuila!"  he  cried,  joyfully,  with  the  tears  rolling 
down  his  cheeks.  I  went  forward  to  meet  him,  and, 
kneeling  on  the  deck,  caught  him  in  my  arms. 


319 


LOVE  AND  ADVERTISING 


BY 


RICHARD  WALTON  TULLY 


Reprinted  from  The  Cosmopolitan  Magazine  of  April,  1906 
by  permission 


LOVE  AND  ADVERTISING 

DO  NOT  demand,"  said  Mr.  Pepper, 
"  I  simply  suggest  a  change.  If  you 
wish  me  to  resign"  —his  self-depreca 
tory  manner  bespoke  an  impossible 
supposition—  "very  well.  But,  if  you 

see  fit  to  find  me  a  new  assistant " 

He  paused,  with  an  interrogatory  cough. 

It  was  the  senior  partner  who  answered,  "We  shall 
consider  the  matter." 

The  advertising  manager's  lean  face  took  on  an 
expression  of  satisfaction.  He  bowed  and  disap 
peared  through  the  door. 

Young  Kaufmann,  the  junior  partner,  smiled 
covertly.  But  the  elder  man's  face  bespoke  keen 
disappointment.  For  it  must  be  explained  that  Mr. 
Pepper's  simple  announcement  bore  vitally  upon  the 
only  dissension  that  had  ever  visited  the  firm  of 
Kaufmann  &  Houghton  during  the  thirty  years  of 
its  existence. 

In  1875,  when  John  Houghton,  fresh  from  college, 
had  come  to  New  York  to  find  his  fortune,  the  elder 
Kaufmann  had  been  a  candy  manufacturer  with  a 
modest  trade  on  the  East  Side.  Young  Houghton 
had  taken  the  agency  of  a  glucose  firm.  The  disposal 
of  this  product  had  brought  the  two  together,  with 

323 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


the  result  that  a  partnership  had  been  formed  to 
carry  on  a  wholesale  confectionery  business.  Suc 
cess  in  this  venture  had  led  to  new  and  more  profit 
able  fields — the  chewing-gum  trade. 

The  rise  to  wealth  of  these  two  was  the  result  of 
the  careful  plodding  of  the  German  workman,  who 
kept  the  "K.  &  H."  produces  up  to  an  unvarying 
standard,  joined  with  the  other's  energy  and  acumen 
in  marketing  the  output.  And  this  mutual  relation 
had  been  disturbed  by  but  one  difference.  When 
Houghton  was  disposed  to  consider  a  college  man 
for  a  vacancy,  Kaufmann  had  always  been  ready 
with  his  "practical  man  dot  has  vorked  hiss  vay." 
And  each  time,  in  respect  to  his  wishes,  Houghton 
had  given  in,  reflecting  that  perhaps  (as  Kaufmann 
said)  it  had  been  that  he,  himself,  was  a  good  busi 
ness  man  in  spite  of  his  college  training,  not  because 
of  it;  and,  after  all,  college  ideals  had  sunk  since  his 
time.  And  the  college  applicant  had  been  sent  away. 

Young  Johann  Kaufmann  graduated  from  gram 
mar  school.  Houghton  suggested  high  school  and 
college. 

"Vat?  Nein!"  said  the  elder  Kaufmann.  "I 
show  him  how  better  the  gum  to  make." 

And  he  did.  He  put  on  an  apron  as  of  yore  and 
started  his  son  under  his  personal  supervision  in  the 
washing-room.  He  took  off  his  apron  when  Johann 
knew  all  about  handling  chicle  produces,  from  im- 
porting-bag  to  tin-foil  wrapper.  Then  he  died. 

And  this  year  troublesome  conditions  had  come  on. 
The    Consolidated    Pepsin    people    were    cutting   in 
severely.   Orders  for  the  great  specialty  of  K.  &  H.— 
"Old  Tulu"— had  fallen.     Something  had  to  be  done. 

324 


Love  andAdvertising 


Houghton,  now  senior  partner,  had  proposed,  and 
young  Kaufmann  agreed,  that  an  advertising  expert 
be  secured.  But  the  agreement  ended  there.  For 
the  first  words  of  the  junior  partner  showed  Houghton 
that  the  spirit  of  the  father  was  still  sitting  at  that 
desk  opposite,  and  smiling  the  same  fat,  phlegmatic 
smile  at  his  supposed  weakness  for  "dose  college 
bitzness." 

They  had  compromised  upon  Mr.  Pepper,  secured 
from  Simpkins'  Practical  Advertising  School.  But 
at  the  end  of  six  months,  Pepper's  so-called  "follow- 
up  campaign"  had  failed  to  meet  materially  the 
steady  inroads  of  the  western  men.  He  had  ex 
plained  that  it  was  the  result  of  his  need  of  an  as 
sistant.  It  was  determined  to  give  him  one. 

Then,  one  night  as  he  sat  in  his  library,  John 
Houghton  had  looked  into  a  pair  of  blue  eyes  and 
promised  to  "give  Tom  Brainard  the  chance."  In 
consequence  he  had  had  his  hair  tousled,  been  given 
a  resounding  kiss  and  a  crushing  hug  from  the  young 
lady  on  his  knees.  For  Dorothy  Houghton,  despite 
her  nineteen  years,  still  claimed  that  privilege  from 
her  father. 

In  that  way,  for  the  first  time,  a  college  man  had 
come  into  the  employ  of  K.  &  H.,  and  been  made  the 
assistant  of  Mr.  Pepper  at  the  salary  he  demanded— 
"any  old  thing  to  start  the  ball  rolling." 

And  now  had  come  the  information  that  the  senior 
partner's  long-desired  experiment  had  ended  in 
failure. 

Young  Kaufmann  turned  to  his  work  with  the  air 
of  one  who  has  given  a  child  its  own  way  and  seen  it 
come  to  grief. 

325 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"I — I  suppose,"  Houghton  said  slowly,  "we'll 
have  to  let  Brainard  go." 

And  then  a  peculiar  thing  happened.  Through 
the  open  window,  floating  in  the  summer  air,  he 
seemed  to  see  a  familiar  figure.  It  was  dressed  in 
fluffy  white,  and  carried  a  parasol  over  its  shoulders. 
It  fluttered  calmly  in,  seated  itself  on  the  sill,  and 
gazed  at  him  with  blue  eyes  that  were  serious,  re 
proachful. 

"Daddy!"  it  said,  and  it  brushed  away  a  wisp  of 
hair  by  its  ear — just  as  another  one,  long  ago,  had 
used  to.     "Daddy!"  it  faltered.     "Why  did  I  ask 
you  to  give  him  the  place,  if  it  wasn't  because— 
because— 

The  spell  was  broken  by  Kaufmann's  voice. 
"Whatefer  you  do,  I  am  sooted,"  he  was  saying. 
It  might  have  been  his  father.  "But  if  w'at  Pepper 
says  about  Brainard— 

The  senior  partner  straightened  up  and  pushed  a 
button.  "Yes.  But  we  haven't  heard  what  Brainard 
says  about  Pepper." 

Several  moments  later,  Tom  Brainard  entered. 
Medium-sized  and  muscular,  he  was  dressed  in  a 
loose-fitting  suit  that  by  its  very  cut  told  his  training. 
He  stood  between  them  as  Mr.  Pepper  had  done, 
but  there  was  nothing  of  the  other's  ingratiating 
deference  in  his  level  look. 

"Sit  down,  Brainard,"  said  Houghton.  The  new 
comer  did  so,  and  the  senior  partner  marked  an  atti 
tude  of  laziness  and  indifference. 

Houghton  became  stern.     "Brainard,"  he  began, 

"I  gave  you  a  chance  with  us  because He 

paused. 

326 


Love  and  Advertising 


The  other  colored*  "I  had  hoped  to  make  good 
without  that.'* 

"But  this  morning  Mr.  Pepper 

"Said  we  couldn't  get  along  together.  That's 
true." 

"Ah!    You  admit!"    It  was  Kaufmann. 

"Yes." 

There  was  a  pause.  Then  Houghton  spoke.  "I 
can't  tell  you  how  much  this  disappoints  me,  Brain- 
ard.  The  fa6t  is,  for  years  I  have  tried  to  shut  my 
eyes  to  the  development  of  college  training.  In  my 
time  there  was  not  the  call  for  practicality  that  there 
is  today.  Yet  it  seems  to  me  that  the  training  in  our 
colleges  has  grown  less  and  less  practical.  Why  do 
the  colleges  turn  out  men  who  spend  their  time  in 
personal  gossip  over  sport  or  trivialities?" 

"You  remember  that  the  King  of  Spain — or  was 
it  Cambodia — puzzled  his  wise  men  for  a  year  as  to 
why  a  fish,  when  dropped  into  a  full  pail  of  water, 
didn't  make  it  overflow." 

"What's  that  got  to  do  with  it?" 

"Because  I  must  answer  as  the  king  did:  It's  not 
so — the  pail  does  overflow.  They  hadn't  thought  to 
try  it." 

'You  mean  that  I  am  wrong." 

"Yes.  Are  you  sure  your  gossips  were  'college 
men'?" 

"Ah!"  Houghton  made  a  gesture  to  his  partner, 
who  was  about  to  speak.  "Then  let  us  commence 
at  the  root  of  the  matter.  Mr.  Kaufmann  and  I  have 
often  discussed  the  subjedl.  In  this  case  you  are  the 
one  who  has  'tried  it.'  Suppose  you  explain  our 
mistake." 

327 


of  Fiction 


"I'd  be  glad  to  do  that,"  said  Brainard,  "because 
I've  heard  a  lot  of  that  talk." 

"Well?" 

"Well — of  course  when  I  say  *  college  man'  I  mean 
college  graduate." 

"Why?" 

"If  a  kitten  crawls  into  an  oven,  is  it  a  biscuit?" 

There  was  an  earnestness  that  robbed  the  question 
of  any  flippancy. 

Houghton  laughed.     "No!" 

"If  a  dub  goes  into  college  and  gets  flunked  out 
in  a  month,  is  he  a  college  man?" 

"Hardly." 

"Oh,  but  he  calls  himself  one.  He  goes  to  Podunk 
all  decorated  up  in  geraniums  and  the  rest  of  his  life 
is  a  'college  man.'  I'm  not  talking  about  him  or  the 
man  who  comes  to  college  to  learn  to  mix  cocktails — 
inside.  He  may  last  to  the  junior  year.  I'm  talking 
about  the  graduate — they're  only  about  a  tenth  of 
the  college.  But  they're  the  finished  produdt.  Mr. 
Kaufmann,  you  wouldn't  try  to  sell  gum  that  had 
only  gone  as  far  as  the  rolling-room,  would  you?" 

"W'at— me?" 

"Would  you?" 

"No."    The  junior  partner  was  puzzled. 

"That's  because  you  want  it  to  go  through  all  the 
processes.  Well,  let's  talk  only  about  the  boy  who 
has  gone  all  the  way  through  the  man  factory." 

Houghton  nodded.    "That's  fair." 

"The  trouble  is,  people  don't  do  that.  They 
persist  in  butting  into  the  college  world,  jerking  out 
some  sophomore  celebration,  and  saying,  '  What  use 
is  this  silly  thing  in  the  real  world?" 

328 


gyirf  Advertising 


"Well,  aren't  they  right?" 

"No.  That's  just  the  point.  The  college  world  is 
a  mimic  world — and  your  lifetime  is  just  four  years. 
The  sophomore  celebration  is  a  practical  thing  there; 
perhaps  it's  teaching  loyalty — that  generally  comes 
first.  That's  your  college  rolling-room.  But  the 
graduate — he's  learned  to  do  something  well.  I 
never  knew  a  college  man  who  wasn't  at  least  respon 
sible." 

"But ' 

"But  here's  the  trouble:  after  selecting  say  two 
hundred  fellows  out  of  an  entering  bunch  of  six 
hundred,  and  developing  the  thing  each  is  best  fitted 
for,  father  steps  in  and  the  boy  who  would  have  made 
a  first-class  professor  is  put  into  business  and  blamed 
for  being  impractical.  The  fellow  who  has  been 
handling  thousands  of  dollars  in  college  management 
and  running  twenty  assistants — the  man  who  could 
have  taken  the  place — has  no  father  to  give  him  the 
boost  necessary,  and  the  other  man's  failure  has 
queered  his  chances.  He  has  to  go  to  work  as  a  mere 
clerk  under  a  man — excuse  me,  I  don't  want  to  do 
any  knocking." 

"You  think  the  whole  trouble  is  caused  by  mis- 
dire  6ted  nepotism." 

"Yes." 

"Ah It  was  young  Kaufmann  again.  "But 

you  said  that  you  were  trained  in  advertising  on 
your  college  paper." 

"Yes — and  I  was  going  to  tell  you  today,  if  Mr. 
Pepper  hadn't,  that  the  money  you're  paying  for 
me  is  utterly  wasted." 

"Ah!" 

329 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


'Yes.  I  can't  look  in  the  face  of  a  hungry  de 
signer  and  beat  him  down  to  within  a  dollar  of  the 
cost  of  materials.  And — and — my  suggestions  upon 
broader  lines  don't  seem  to  cause  much  hooray." 

"Well — "  the  junior  partner  sat  up— "since  you 
admit—  He  paused  for  his  partner  to  speak 

the  words  of  discharge. 

But  Houghton  was  looking  quizzically  at  the  col 
lege  man.  "What  was  your  idea  as  to  broader 
lines?" 

Brainard  hesitated.  "Well,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
Pepper  is  trying  to  do  two  things  that  are  antagonis 
tic:  be  'elite9  and  sell  chewing-gum.  The  fa<5t  is  that 
elite  people  don't  chew  gum.  I'd  like  to  know  how 
the  statement, '  Old  Tulu — Best  by  Test,'  will  make 
a  kid  on  the  corner  with  a  cent  in  his  fist  have  an 
attack  of  mouth-watering." 

Kaufmann  roused  himself.  "It  is  true.  Our  gum 
is  the  best." 

"I'm  not  disputing  that,  but  still  it's  gum.  If 
you're  trying  to  increase  the  vulgar  habit  of  gum- 
chewing — well — you  can't  do  it  by  advertising  the 
firm's  financial  standing,  its  age,  or  the  purity  of  its 
output.  That  would  do  for  an  insurance  company 
or  a  bank — but  gum!  Who  cares  for  purity!  All 
they  want  to  know  is  if  it  schmeckt  gut."  This  last 
with  a  humorous  glance  at  Kaufmann. 

The  latter  was  scowling.  Brainard  was  touching 
a  tender  spot. 

"Well,  what  would  you  do?" 

Brainard  flushed.  He  felt  the  tone  of  sarcasm  in 
the  elder  man's  voice.  He  tightened  his  lips.  "At 
least,  I'd  change  the  name  of  the  gum!" 

330 


Love  and  Advertising 


"Change  the  name!"    Kaufmann  was  horrified. 

"Well,  nobody  wants  'Old  Tulu.'  They  want 
'New  Tulu'  or  'Fresh  Tasty  Tulu.'  At  least,  some 
thing  to  appeal  to  the  imagination  of  Sadie-at-the- 
ribbon-counter . ' ' 

"Oh!"  observed  Houghton.  "And  the  name  you 
suggest?" 

"Well,— say  something  like  'Lulu  Tulu." 

"Gott!"  Kaufmann  struck  the  desk  a  blow  with 
his  fist.  It  was  an  insult  to  his  father's  memory. 

Brainard  rose.  "I'm  sorry,"  he  said,  "if  I  have 
offended.  To  save  you  any  further  bother,  I'll  just 
cut  it  out  after  Saturday.  I — thank  you  for  the 
chance" —  he  smiled  a  little  ruefully — "the  chance 
you  have  given  me.  Good  day,  gentlemen." 

He  turned  on  his  heel  and  left  the  office. 

As  John  Houghton  was  driven  home  that  night, 
he  became  suddenly  conscious  that  he  would  soon 
meet  the  apparition  of  the  afternoon  in  the  flesh. 
And  though,  of  course,  there  was  no  need,  he  found 
himself  rehearsing  the  justification  of  his  position. 
"Lulu  Tulu"  indeed!  Imagine  the  smile  that  would 
have  illumined  the  faces  at  the  club  on  such  an  an 
nouncement.  The  impudence  of  the  boy  to  have 
suggested  it  to  him — him  who  had  so  often  held 
forth  upon  the  value  of  conservatism  in  business! 
And  he  remembered  with  pride  the  speaker  who  had 
once  said,  "It  is  such  solid  vertebrae  as  Mr.  Houghton 
that  form  the  backbone  of  our  business  world." 
That  speaker  had  been  Bender,  of  the  New  York 
Dynamo  Company.  Poor  Bender!  The  Western 
Ele6lric  Construction  had  got  him  after  all. 

331 


TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


This  line  of  thought  caused  Houghton  to  reach 
in  his  pocket  and  produce  a  letter.  He  went  over 
the  significant  part  again. 

"Our  Mr.  Byrnes  reports  the  clinching  of  the  sub 
way  vending-machine  contract,"  it  read,  "and  this, 
together  with  our  other  business,  will  give  us  over 
half  of  the  New  York  trade.  With  this  statement 
before  us,  we  feel  that  we  can  make  a  winning  fight  if 
you  still  refuse  to  consider  our  terms.  In  view  of  recent 
developments,  we  cannot  repeat  our  former  offer, 
but  if  you  will  consider  sixty-seven  as  a  figure ' 

Sixty-seven!  And  a  year  before  he  would  not 
have  taken  one  hundred  and  ten!  In  the  bitterness 
of  the  moment,  he  wondered  if  he,  too,  would  finally 
go  the  way  that  Bender  had. 

And  then,  as  the  butler  swung  the  door  back,  he 
was  recalled  to  the  matter  of  Tom  Brainard  by  the 
sight  of  a  familiar  figure  that  floated  toward  him  as 
airily  as  had  its  astral  self  that  afternoon. 

He  kissed  her  and  went  to  his  study.  Just  before 
dinner  was  not  a  time  to  discuss  such  things.  But  later, 
as  he  looked  across  the  candelabra  at  his  daughter,  all 
smiles  and  happiness  in  that  seat  that  had  been  her 
mother's,  he  regretted  that  he  had  not,  for 

"Daddy,"  Dorothy  was  saying,  "I  got  such  a 
funny  note  from  Tom  this  afternoon.  He  says  there 
has  been  a  change  at  the  office  and  that  you  will 
explain." 

"Yes." 

"Well ?"  She  paused  eagerly.  "It's  some 
thing  awfully  good — I  know." 

Her  father  frowned  and  caught  her  eye.  "Later," 
he  said  significantly. 

332 


Love  and  Advertising 


The  girl  read  the  tone,  and  the  gaiety  of  the  mo 
ment  before  was  gone.  After  that  they  ate  in  silence. 

One  cigar — two  cigars  had  been  smoked  when  she 
stole  into  the  library.  Since  coffee  (whether  from 
design  or  chance  he  never  knew),  she  had  rearranged 
her  hair.  Now  it  was  low  on  her  neck  in  a  fashion  of 
long  ago,  with  a  single  curl  that  strayed  over  a  white 
shoulder  to  her  bosom.  She  knelt  at  his  side  without 
a  word. 

He  looked  down  at  her.  Somehow  he  had  never 
seen  her  like  this  before — that  curious  womanly  ex 
pression. 

"Tell  me,"  was  all  she  said. 

And,  as  he  told  Tom  Brainard's  failure  to  fit  in, 
he  watched  her  closely.  "I'm  sorry,"  he  concluded. 

"So  am  I,  daddy,"  she  returned  steadily;  "because 
I  am  going  to  marry  him." 

"What?" 

"Oh,  you  knew — you  must  have,"  she  said,  "when 
I  asked  you  to  give  him  the  chance." 

The  father  was  silent.  In  fancy  he  again  heard 
Dolly  Warner  promising,  against  her  parents'  ad 
vice,  to  wait  for  her  John  to  "get  on  in  the  world." 

"Well?"  he  asked. 

"Do  you  think  you've  given  him  a  fair  chance?" 

He  was  restored  to  his  usual  poise.  "I  suppose 
he  complained  that  I  didn't." 

Dorothy's  eyes  went  wide.  "No,  he  said  that 
after  I  had  heard  the  news  from  you,  he  would  leave 
everything  to  me." 

"Oh!" 

"But,  father,  I  don't  think  you  have  been  fair* 
Tom  is  right.  I  don't  chew  gum,  do  I  ?" 

333 


T'heSpinners'Boofc  of  Fiction 


"Well "  He  was  indignant.  Then  he  stopped 

thoughtfully.  "No." 

"But  Mary  downstairs  does.  She  wouldn't  be 
offended  at  'Lulu  Tulu.'  I  dare  say  she'd  think  it 
4  just  grand." 

He  returned  no  answer. 

"Come,  daddy,"  she  went  on.  "New  York  has 
grown  lots — even  since  I  was  little.  And — and  some 
people  get  behind  the  times.  They  think  they're 
being  dignified  when  it's  only  that  they're  antiquated." 

He  looked  shrewdly  at  her.  "I  never  heard  you 
talk  like  that  before.  Where  did  you " 

"Tom  said  that  a  week  ago,"  she  admitted.  "And 
he  said,  too,  that  he  could  double  the  results  if  he 
only  had  full  swing.  Instead,  you  admit  he's  a  mere 
clerk  for  that  horrid  Pepper.  Oh,  daddy,  daddy," 
she  pleaded.  "Give  him  a  chance."  Then  her 
voice  went  low  again.  "I'm  going  to  marry  him 
anyway,"  she  said,  "and  you  don't  want  this  be 
tween.  If  he  fails,  I'll  stand  the  loss  from  what 
mother  left  me.  Give  him  full  swing — a  real  chance, 
daddy!  He's  going  to  be — your  son." 

John  Houghton  looked  into  the  earnest  girlish 
face.  He  wound  the  curl  about  his  finger.  "Kauf- 
mann  has  always  wanted  to  visit  the  Fatherland," 
he  said  irrelevantly. 

She  gave  a  quick,  eager  look.  "And  that  Pepper 
could  go  on  a  vacation." 

Days  drag  very  slowly  at  a  summer  resort,  es 
pecially  when  one  has  promised  not  to  write  to  him. 
But  Dorothy's  father  had  kept  his  word,  so  she  could 
but  do  the  same.  Behind,  in  the  sweltering  city, 

334 


Love  andd:uertismg_ 


in  full  charge  for  six  weeks  was  Tom  Brainard.  His 
authority  included  permission  to  invent  and  use  any 
new  labels  or  trade-marks  he  saw  fit. 

The  girl  at  the  seashore,  however,  was  also  busy — 
amusing  her  father  that  he  might  not  give  too 
much  time  to  thinking.  And  then,  when  three  of 
the  six  weeks  had  passed,  came  the  accident  to  the 
motor  car. 

She  was  told  that  with  rest  and  no  worries,  her 
father  would  recover  in  a  week  or  two.  She  cheer 
fully  fitted  into  the  role  of  assistant  to  the  nurse  in 
charge,  and,  as  soon  as  the  doctor  allowed,  prepared 
to  read  his  mail  to  him  as  he  lay,  eyes  and  head 
bandaged.  But  as  she  opened  and  glanced  over  the 
accumulated  letters,  she  suddenly  went  pale.  She 
read  one  in  particular  from  end  to  end,  and  then, 
with  a  scared,  furtive  look  at  the  bandaged  figure, 
slipped  it  into  a  pocket. 

Later,  when  her  father  had  finished  dictating  to 
her,  she  answered  the  concealed  letter  herself. 

Again  the  days  drifted.  The  bandages  were  re 
moved;  but  still  the  girl  continued  to  scan  the  mail. 
Her  vigilance  was  rewarded.  She  flushed  over  a 
second  letter  which,  with  one  in  a  worn  envelope, 
she  took  to  her  father. 

He  saw  the  careworn  expression.  "My  little  girl 
has  been  overworking,"  he  said. 

She  held  out  the  worn  letter.  "I've  had  this  for 
some  time — but — but  I  waited  for  something  more, 
and  here  it  is."  She  showed  the  other. 

He  took  the  first,  and  when  he  had  finished,  his 
hand  was  trembling. 

"I  regret  to  report  that  things  are  in  a  chaos,"  it 

335 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


ran.  "All  of  the  regular  advertising  has  been  with 
drawn.  The  usual  entertainment  money  for  sales 
men  (classed  under  this  head)  has  been  stopped.  In 
consequence,  our  city  trade  has  tumbled  fearfully — 
and  you  know  how  bad  it  was  before.  The  worst 
news  I  have  to  offer  is  in  regard  to  Mr.  Brainard  per 
sonally.  Our  detective  reports  that  his  time  outside 
is  spent  in  most  questionable  company.  He  has  been 
seen  drinking  at  roof-gardens  with  a  certain  dissi 
pated  pugilist  named  Little  Sullivan,  and  was  traced 
with  this  man  to  the  apartment  of  a  song-and-dance 
woman  named  Violette.  He  seems  to  be  spending 
money  extravagantly  and  visits  certain  bohemian 
quarters  in  the  vicinity  of  Jones  Street,  where  he 
puts  in  his  time  with  disreputable-looking  men.  I 
beg  leave  to  advise  immediate  action. — Mowbray." 

"My  God!"  groaned  Houghton.  This  explained 
that  derisive  offer  of  fifty-one  from  Consolidated 
Pepsin. 

"And  you  kept  this  from  me?" 

"They  said  not  to  worry  you,"  she  said.     "I— 
I've  had  enough  for  two.    Besides,  I  answered  it." 

"You  did!    What ?" 

"I  told  them  to  wait  a  little  longer." 

The  father  groaned  again. 

"I  just  had  to,  daddy;  and  then  today  this  letter 


came." 


He  seized  it  eagerly.     It  read:  "You  were  right 
about  waiting.     Suspend  all  a6tion." 
"What  does  it  mean?"  she  asked. 
"We'll  find  out  tomorrow,"  he  answered  grimly. 

The  4:30  train  gave  John  Houghton  just  time  to 

338 


Love  and  Advertising 


reach  the  office  before  it  closed.  Dorothy  went  home. 
Her  father,  roused  by  the  evil  news  of  the  day  before, 
had  impressed  her  with  all  that  it  might  mean  in  a 
material  way.  As  though  that  mattered! — as  though 
anything  could  hurt  her  more !  She  would  have  been 
willing  to  go  with  Tom  Brainard  in  rags  before — 
but  now! 

She  sat  by  the  telephone  with  clenched  fists,  her 
traveling  veil  still  pushed  up  on  her  hat,  the  lines 
that  had  come  into  her  face  during  the  past  week 
deepening  with  the  dusk.  At  last — a  long,  sharp 
ring!  "Yes — father — not  dine  at  home — meet  you 
at  the  Yolland — a  guest.  Yes — but  about  Tom — 
what?— 7:30— But  about  Tom,  daddy?  Good-by?!! 
But,  daddy!!!" 

It  was  no  use.  He  had  hung  up.  She  called  fever 
ishly  for  the  office,  but  the  reply  was,  "They  do  not 
answer."  Mechanically  she  went  up  to  her  room. 
"The  blue  mousseline,  Susan,"  she  said. 

As  the  maid  laid  it  out,  she  walked  the  floor. 
Through  the  window  the  park  lay  green  and  inviting. 
She  longed  to  fly  to  the  cool  grass  and  run — and 
run 

From  below  came  the  loud,  rasping  notes  of  a 
street-piano  that,  in  some  incomprehensible  fashion, 
had  wandered  to  the  deserted  row  of  houses.  The 
noise,  for  all  that  there  was  a  pleasing  swing  to  the 
air,  irritated  her.  She  threw  the  man  a  quarter. 
"Go  away,"  she  waved. 

At  last  the  maid  said  her  mistress  was  ready,  and 
Dorothy,  without  questioning  the  decision,  allowed 
herself  to  be  put  into  the  brougham. 

The    drive    seemed    hours    long,    and  then — her 

337 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


father's  face  told  her  nothing.  Without  a  word, 
he  led  her  to  a  reception-room.  As  they  entered,  a 
figure  sprang  to  meet  them. 

For  a  moment  she  hesitated.  Then,  "Tom!"  she 
cried,  and  caught  his  hand. 

He  saw  the  whiteness  of  her  face,  and  all  the 
yearnings  of  their  separation  matched  it  upon  his. 

"Dorothy!"  he  faltered. 

Her  father  interrupted.  "Tom  is  to  explain  how 
he  has  quadrupled  our  business  in  the  last  week." 

A  sudden  weakness  seized  her.  She  followed  them 
unsteadily.  Seated  at  a  table,  however,  she  was 
able  to  smile  again.  At  that  moment,  the  orchestra, 
striking  up,  suddenly  caught  her  attention.  "Turn — 
turn-turn — turn-turn — turn"  —that  haunting,  swing 
ing  melody  of  the  street-piano. 

"What  tune  is  that?"  she  asked. 

Brainard  smiled.  "  That  is  a  tune  that  has  sud 
denly  become  popular.  Any  night  you  may  see 
hundreds  of  East  Side  children  dancing  on  the 
asphalt  and  singing  it." 

"Yes,"  she  said.    "I  heard  it  on  a  street-piano." 

"It's  called,"  he  went  on,  "'My  Lulu  Tulu  Girl.' 
All  the  grinders  have  it.  Billy  Tompkins,  Noughty- 
three,  who  lives  in  the  Jones  Street  social  settlement, 
worked  that  for  me.  Those  dagoes  worship  him — 
saved  a  kid's  life  or  something." 

A  light  came  into  John  Houghton's  eyes. 

"That's  part  of  the  scheme.  Aspwell  wrote  the 
song.  I  found  him  down  in  bohemia  working  on  an 
opera.  But,  for  the  sake  of  old  days  in  the  senior 
extravaganza,  he  turned  off  'My  Lulu  Tulu  Girl.' 
You  know  those  orders  on  your  desk  are  for  our 

338 


Love  and  Advertising 


new  brand,  'Lulu  Tulu.'  The  song  was  introduced 
two  weeks  ago  at  the  Metropolitan  Roof  by  Violette, 
a  young  lady  who  married  our  old  football  trainer, 
Little  Sullivan.  We'll  hear  her  later — I  have  tickets. 
Then  we'll  go  to  Leith's;  there's  a  turn  there  by  '  Jim 
Bailey  and  his  Six  Lulu  Tulu  Girls' — rather  vulgar 
(while  they  dance  they  chew  the  gum  and  perform 
calisthenics  with  it)  but  it  seems  to  go.  Then " 

"Tom!" 

"After  we've  dined,  I'll  show  you  our  regular 
magazine  and  newspaper  advertising  in  the  reading- 
room — double  space.  You  see,  I  couldn't  ask  you 
to  increase,  so  I  stopped  it  for  a  time  and  saved  up. 
But  I  hope  you'll  stand  for  it  regularly.  It's  mainly 
pictures  of  Miss  Lulu  Tulu  in  a  large  Florodora  hat, 
with  verses  below  apostrophizing  the  poetry  of  mo 
tion  of  her  jaws.  Then  there's  a  line  of  limericks 
about  the  adventures  of  the  'Lulu  Tulu  Gummies' — 
small  gum-headed  tykes — always  in  trouble  until 
they  find  Lulu.  I  got  Phillips  to  do  that  as  a  personal 
favor." 

"Also  Noughty-something,  I  suppose,"  remarked 
Houghton. 

'Yes.  But  he  graduated  before  my  time.  I  knew 
his  work  in  the  college  annual.  He's  in  the  magazines 
now.  Then  I  got  Professor  Wheaton — '  Jimmy  the 
Grind'  we  used  to  call  him — his  folks  wanted  him  to 
be  a  poet — imagine  Jimmy  a  poet! — I  got  Professor 
Wheaton  to  give  us  some  readers  on  'Tulu  as  a  Sal 
ivary  Stimulant,'  'The  Healthful  Effe6t  of  Pure 
Saliva  on  Food  Produces'  and  'The  Degenerative 
Effe6l  of  Artificially  Relieving  an  Organ  of  its  Proper 
Functions.'  That  hits  the  Pepsin  people,  you  see— 

339 


f  Fiction 


And  so  it  ran — until  he  had  covered  his  plan  fully, 
and  Dorothy's  face  with  happy  smiles. 

"Tom,"  said  the  father,  "if  I  had  opened  that 
letter  instead  of  Dolly!" 

Dorothy  suddenly  became  demure  under  their  gaze, 
and  sought  to  change  the  subject.  "Then  you  admit, 
daddy,  that  a  college  man  is  of  some  use?" 

"I'll  admit  that  Tom  got  the  business.  But  that 
was  because  he  is  naturally  clever  and  business-like, 
not  because ' 

"Just  a  moment,"  said  Brainard.  "I  think  I  can 
show  that  you're  mistaken.  I  found  out  that  Pepper 
was  doing  the  wrong  thing — by  the  first  rule  of  criti 
cism  (freshman  English):  'What  is  the  author  trying 
to  do  ?  Does  he  do  it  ?  Is  it  worth  doing  ? '  Substi 
tute  *  advertising  man '  for  *  author '  and  you  have  a 
business  that  is  worth  doing  (since  you  continue  it)  — 
and  by  the  other  two  questions  I  saw  his  'incon 
gruity  of  subje6l-matter  and  expression.'  My  eco 
nomics  taught  me  the  'law  of  supply  and  demand.' 
'Analytical  research  of  original  authorities'  taught 
me  where  the  demand  was.  There  was  only  the 
problem  of  a  cause  to  stimulate  it.  Through  'de- 
du6live  logic'  and  'psychology'  I  got  the  cause  that 
would  appeal,  and  the  effect  worked  out  in  an  in 
creased  demand  which  we  were  ready  to  supply — 
just  like  a  problem  in  math." 

The  elder  man  smiled.  "I  don't  understand  a 
word  you  say,  but  it  seems  to  have  worked  well.  In 
the  future,  bring  in  as  many  of  your  Noughty  friends 
as  we  need.  I'll  answer  for  Kaufmann." 

The  other  shook  his  head.  "I'm  not  sure  they 
would  be  any  too  anxious." 

340 


Advertising 


Houghton   gasped   in   surprise.     "What's   that— 
they  wouldn't  be  anxious  to  go  into  business!    Why 
not?" 

"Why  not?"  There  was  equal  amazement  in  the 
younger  man's  tone.  "Would  you  be  anxious  to 
leave  a  place  where  you're  surrounded  by  friends 
you've  tried — friends  that  won't  stab  you  in  the  back 
the  next  minute  and  call  it  a  'business  deal' — where 
you're  respected  and  in  control  of  things,  and  plunge 
out  to  become  a  freshman  in  the  world-life,  to  do  the 
sorting  and  trying  all  over  again?" 

"I  remember — I  remember " 

"And  besides,  what  right  has  any  one  to  assume 
that  business  is  above  art,  charity  or  even  mere  learn 
ing  ?  Billy  Tompkins,  in  the  slums  helping  dagoes,  is 
a  failure  to  his  father — so  is  Aspwell  with  his  opera — 
so  is  Williams  with  his  spectacles  in  his  lab.  But — 
who  knows — when  the  Great  Business  is  finally 

balanced '     He  stopped,  conscious  that  he  was 

growing  too  rhetorical. 

"If  you  loved  college  ideals  so  much  more  than 
business,"  observed  Houghton,  "then  why  did  you 
come  to  us?" 

A  different  light  stole  into  the  younger  man's  eyes. 
"Because" — he  answered,  "because  I  loved  some 
thing  else  better  than  either."  And  he  reached  his 
hand  under  the  cloth  to  one  who  understood. 

That  is  all — except  that  the  next  offer  of  Consoli 
dated  Pepsin  was,  "Will  you  please  name  your  own 
terms?" 


341 


THE  TEWANA 

BY 

HERMAN  WHITAKER 


Reprinted  from  The  Blue  Mule 

A   Western  Magazine  of  Stories,  of  February,  1906 

by  permission 


THE  TEW  ANA 

HE  WAS  a  Tewana  of  the  Tehuante- 
pec  Isthmus,  a  primal  woman,  round- 
armed,  deep-breasted,  shapely  as  the 
dream  on  which  Canova  modeled 
Venus.  Her  skin  was  of  the  rich 
gold  hue  that  marks  the  blood  un- 
muddied  by  Spanish  strain;  to  see  her,  poised  on  a 
rich  hip  by  the  river's  brink,  wringing  her  tresses 
after  the  morning  bath,  it  were  justifiable  to  mistake 
her  for  some  beautiful  bronze.  Moreover,  it  were 
easy  to  see  her,  for,  in  Tehuantepec,  innocence  is 
thoughtless  as  in  old  Eden.  When  Paul  Steiner 
passed  her  one  morning,  she  gave  him  the  curious 
open-eyed  stare  of  a  deer,  bade  him  a  pleasant 
"Buenos  dias,  Senor!"  and  would  have  proceeded, 
undisturbed,  with  her  toilet,  but  that  he  spoke.  In 
this  he  was  greatly  mistaken.  Gringos  there  are — 
praise  the  saints! — who  can  judge  Tehuantepec  by 
the  insight  of  kindred  purity,  but  Paul  had  to  learn 
by  the  more  uncomfortable  method  of  a  stone  in  the 
face. 

He  ought  not,  however,  to  be  too  severely  handled 
for  his  dulness.  Though  a  mining  engineer,  nature 
had  endowed  him  with  little  beyond  the  algebraic 
qualities  necessary  to  the  profession;  a  German- 

345 


American,  a  dull  birth  and  heredity  had  predestined 
him  for  that  class  which  clothes  its  morality  in  fusty 
black  and  finds  safety  in  following  its  neighbor  in 
the  cut  of  its  clothes  and  conduct.  As  then,  he  was 
not  planned  for  original  thinking,  it  is  not  at  all  sur 
prising  that  he  should — when  pitchforked  by  Oppor 
tunity  into  the  depths  of  tropical  jungles — lose  his 
moral  bearings,  fail  to  recognize  a  virtue  that  went 
in  her  own  golden  skin,  and  so  go  down  before  a 
temptation  that,  of  old,  populated  the  sexless  desert. 

That  his  error  continued  in  the  face  of  Andrea's 
stone  is  certainly  more  remarkable,  though  this  also 
should  be  charged  rather  against  her  mismarksman- 
ship  than  to  the  wearing  quality  of  his  elecTro-plate 
morality.  It  is  doubtful  if  even  the  ancient  Jews 
had  found  "stoning"  as  efficacious  a  "cure  for  souls" 
had  they  thrown  wide  as  she.  Anyway,  Paul  stood 
"unconvicled,"  as  the  revivalists  have  it,  and  being 
moved  to  chagrin  instead  of  shame,  he  carried  the 
story  of  Andrea's  surprising  modesty  to  Bachelder. 

Here  was  a  man  of  other  parts.  An  artist,  he  had 
traced  the  spinning  meridians  over  desert  and  sea, 
following  the  fluttering  wing  of  the  muse  till  she  re 
warded  his  deathless  hope  by  pausing  for  him  in 
this  small  Indian  town.  Expecting  to  stay  a  week, 
he  had  remained  fifteen  years,  failing  to  exhaust  in 
that  long  time  a  tithe  of  its  form  and  color.  Screened 
by  tropical  jungle,  a  mask  of  dark  palms  laced  with 
twining  bejucas,  it  sat  like  a  wonderfully  blazoned 
cup  in  a  wide  green  saucer  that  was  edged  with  the 
purple  of  low  environing  hills — a  brimming  cup  of 
inspiration.  Save  where  some  oaken  grill  supplied 
an  ashen  note,  its  adobe  streets  burned  in  smoldering 

346 


rose,  purple  and  gold — the  latter  always  predom 
inant.  It  glowed  in  the  molten  sunlight,  shone 
in  the  soft  satin  of  a  woman's  skin;  the  very  dust  rose 
in  auriferous  clouds  from  the  wooden-wheeled  ox 
carts.  But  for  its  magenta  tiling,  the  pillared  market 
stood,  a  huge  monochrome,  its  deep  yellows  splashed 
here  and  there  with  the  crimson  of  the  female  huck 
sters'  dresses.  This  was  their  every-day  wear — a 
sleeveless  bodice,  cut  low  over  the  matchless  ampli 
tudes  and  so  short  that  the  smooth  waist  showed  at 
each  uplift  of  the  round,  bronze  arms;  a  skirt  that 
was  little  more  than  a  cloth  wound  about  the  limbs; 
a  shawl,  all  of  deep  blood  color.  Small  wonder  that 
he  had  stayed  on,  and  on,  and  on,  while  the  weeks 
merged  into  months,  and  months  into  years. 

He  lived  in  the  town's  great  house,  an  old  feudal 
hacienda  with  walls  two  yards  thick,  recessed  win 
dows  oaken  grilled,  and  a  pleasant  patio  where  the 
hidalgo  could  take  his  ease  under  cocoanut  palms 
and  lemon  trees  while  governments  went  to  smash 
without.  Here  Bachelder  was  always  to  be  found  in 
the  heat  of  the  day,  and  here  he  listened  with  huge 
disgust  to  Paul's  story.  Because  of  their  faith, 
strength  and  purity — according  to  their  standards — 
he  had  always  sworn  by  the  Tewana  women,  setting 
them  above  all  others,  and  though  a  frank  sinner 
against  accepted  moral  codes,  he  would  never  have 
confused  nudity  with  vice. 

"Man!"  he  exclaimed — so  loudly  that  Rosa,  his 
housekeeper,  imagined  that  something  was  going 
wrong  again  with  the  painting — "  Man!  all  the  dollars 
you  will  ever  earn  would  buy  nothing  more  than  her 
stone!  If  you  want  her,  you  will  have  to  marry  her." 

347 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


"Oh,  don't  look  so  chopf alien!"  he  went  on, 
scornfully,  when  Paul  blinked.  "I  mean  marriage 
as  she  counts  it.  You  will  have  to  court  her  for  a 
couple  of  months  —flowers,  little  gifts,  small  cour 
tesies,  that  sort  of  thing;  then,  if  she  likes  you,  she 
will  come  and  keep  your  house.  When,  later,  you 
feel  like  settling  down  in  the  bosom  of  respectability, 
there  won't  be  a  shred  of  law  to  hold  you." 

Now  if  Paul  lacked  wit  to  analyze  and  apply  to 
his  own  government  a  moral  law  that  has  evolved 
from  the  painful  travail  of  the  generations,  it  does 
not  follow  that  he  was  too  stupid  to  feel  irony.  Red 
dening,  he  put  forth  the  usual  declaimer  of  honorable 
intention  with  the  glib  tongue  of  passion.  He  meant 
well  by  the  girl!  Would  give  her  a  good  home,  find 
her  better  than  she  had  ever  been  found  in  her  life! 
As  for  marrying  ?  He  was  not  of  the  marrying  kind ! 
Never  would!  and  so  on,  finishing  with  a  vital  ques 
tion — did  Bachelder  know  where  she  lived? 

His  color  deepened  under  the  artist's  sarcastic 
glance.  "So  that's  what  you're  after?  I  wondered 
why  you  picked  me  for  a  father  confessor.  Well,  I 
don't,  but  you  won't  have  any  trouble  in  finding  her. 
All  the  women  sell  something;  she's  sure  to  be  on 
the  market  in  the  morning.  You  will  get  her  quite 
easily.  The  girls  seem  to  take  pride  in  keeping  a 
Gringo's  house — I  don't  know  why,  unless  it  be 
that  they  are  so  dazzled  by  the  things  we  have  that 
they  cannot  see  us  for  what  we  are." 

A  thousand  crimson  figures  were  weaving  in  and 
out  the  market's  chrome  pillars  when  Paul  entered 
next  morning,  but  though  it  was  hard  to  single  one 

348 


The  Tewana 


person  from  the  red  confusion,  luck  led  him  almost 
immediately  to  where  Andrea  stood,  a  basket  of 
tortillas  at  her  feet.  Lacking  customers,  just  then, 
she  leaned  against  a  pillar,  her  scarlet  flaming  against 
its  chrome,  thoughtful,  pensive,  as  Bachelder  painted 
her  for  "The  Enganchada,"  the  girl  sold  for  debt. 
Her  shawl  lay  beside  her  basket,  so  her  hair,  that  had 
flown  loose  since  the  morning  bath,  fell  in  a  cataract 
over  the  polished  amplitudes  of  bosom  and  shoulders. 
Save  when  feeling  shot  them  with  tawny  flashes — as 
waving  branches  filter  mottled  sunlight  on  brown 
waters — her  eyes  were  dark  as  the  pools  of  Lethe, 
wherein  men  plunge  and  forget  the  past.  They 
brought  forgetfulness  to  Paul  of  his  moral  tradition, 
racial  pride,  the  carefully  conned  apology  which  he 
did  not  remember  until,  an  hour  later,  he  fed  her 
entire  stock  in  trade  to  his  dog.  It  was  better  so. 
Black,  brown  or  white  women  are  alike  sensitive  to 
the  language  of  flowers,  and  the  lilies  he  left  in  her 
basket  served  him  more  sweetly  than  could  his  stam 
mering  tongue.  Next  morning,  curiosity  replaced 
hostility  in  her  glance,  and  when  he  left  the  market, 
her  brown  gaze  followed  him  beyond  the  portals. 
Needs  not,  however,  to  linger  over  the  courtship. 
Sufficient  that  color  of  skin  does  not  affecT;  the 
feminine  trait  that  forgiveness  comes  easier  when 
the  offense  was  provoked  by  one's  own  beauty;  the 
story  goes  on  from  the  time  that  Andrea  moved  into 
his  house  with  a  stock  of  household  gear  that  ex 
torted  musical  exclamations  from  all  her  girl  friends. 
To  their  housekeeping  Andrea  contributed  only 
her  handsome  body  with  a  contained  cargo  of  un- 
suspedled  qualities  and  virtues  that  simply  dazzled 

349 


TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


Paul  as  they  cropped  out  upon  the  surface.  In  pub 
lic  a  Tewana  bears  herself  staidly,  carrying  a  certain 
dignity  of  expression  that  of  itself  reveals  how,  of 
old,  her  forbears  came  to  place  limits  to  the  ambi 
tion  of  the  conquering  Aztec  and  made  even  Spanish 
dominion  little  more  than  an  uncomfortable  name. 
Though,  through  courtship,  Andrea's  stern  com 
posure  had  shown  no  trace  of  a  thaw,  it  yet  melted 
like  snow  under  a  south  wind  when  she  was  once 
ensconced  in  their  little  home.  Moreover,  she  un 
masked  undreamed  of  batteries,  bewildering  Paul 
with  infinite  variety  of  feminine  complexities.  She 
would  be  arch,  gay,  saucy,  and  in  the  next  breath 
fall  into  one  of  love's  warm  silences,  watching  him 
with  eyes  of  molten  bronze.  She  taught  him  the  love 
of  the  tropics  without  transcending  modesty.  Also 
she  astonished  him,  negatively,  by  the  absence  of 
those  wide  differences  of  nature  and  feeling  between 
her  and  the  cultured  women  of  his  own  land  that 
reading  in  the  primal  school  of  ficTion  had  led  him 
to  expedl.  He  learned  from  her  that  woman  is  al 
ways  woman  under  any  clime  or  epoch.  The  greater 
strength  of  her  physique  lessened,  perhaps,  the  vine- 
like  tendency,  yet  she  clung  sufficiently  to  satisfy 
the  needs  of  his  masculinity;  and  she  displayed  the 
feminine  unreason,  at  once  so  charming  and  irritat 
ing,  with  sufficient  coquetry  to  freshen  her  love.  Her 
greatest  charm,  however,  lay  in  the  dominant  quality 
of  brooding  motherhood,  the  birthright  of  primal 
women  and  the  very  essence  of  femininity.  After 
one  of  those  sweet  silences,  she  would  steal  on  him 
from  behind,  and  pull  his  head  to  her  bosom  with 
such  a  squeeze  as  a  loving  mother  gives  her  son. 

350 


Yet,  under  even  this  mood,  her  laughter  lay  close 
to  the  surface,  and  nothing  tapped  its  merry  flow 
quicker  than  Paul's  Spanish.  Picking  up  the  lan 
guage  haphazard,  he  had  somehow  learned  to  apply 
the  verb  tumblar  to  describe  the  pouring  out  of  coffee, 
and  he  clung  to -it  after  correction  with  a  persistence 
that  surely  inhered  in  his  dogged  German  blood. 
"  Tumbarlo  el  cafe!"  he  would  say,  and  she  would 
repeat  it,  faithfully  mimicking  his  accent. 

"Tumble  out  the  coffee!"  following  it  with  peals 
of  laughter.  Or,  turning  up  a  saucy  face,  she  would 
ask,  "Shall  I  tumble  out  more  coffee?"  and  again 
the  laughter  which  came  as  readily  at  her  own  misfit 
attempts  at  English. 

These,  few  and  simple,  were  learned  of  Bachelder's 
woman,  and  sprung  on  Paul  as  surprises  on  his  re 
turn  from  visiting  the  mining  properties,  which  re 
quired  his  frequent  presence.  For  instance,  slipping 
to  his  knee  on  one  such  occasion,  with  the  great  heart 
of  her  pulsing  against  him,  she  sighed:  "I  love  thee, 
lovest  thou  me?" 

A  lesson  from  Bachelder  pleased  him  less.  Know 
ing  Paul's  pride  in  his  German  ancestry,  and  having 
been  present  when,  in  seasons  of  swollen  pride,  he 
had  reflected  invidiously  in  Andrea's  presence  on 
Mexico  and  all  things  Mexican,  the  artist,  in  a  wicked 
moment,  taught  her  to  lisp  " Hoch  der  Kaiser!"  lese- 
majest'e  that  almost  caused  Paul  a  fainting-fit. 

"You  shouldn't  have  taught  her  that,"  he  said 
to  Bachelder.  But  the  mischief  was  done.  Whenever, 
thereafter,  through  torment  of  insecT;  or  obsession 
of  national  pride,  he  animadverted  on  her  country, 
she  silenced  him  with  the  treasonable  expression. 

351 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


She  learned  other  than  English  from  Bachelder's 
woman,  sweating  out  the  dog  days  in  Rosa's  kitchen, 
experimenting  with  the  barbaric  dishes  Gringos  love. 
She  slaved  for  his  comfort,  keeping  his  linen,  her 
house  and  self  so  spotlessly  clean  that  as  Paul's  pas 
sion  waned,  affeclion  grew  up  in  its  place — the  re- 
specTful  affedlion  that,  at  home,  would  have  afforded 
a  permanent  basis  for  a  happy  marriage.  When,  a 
year  later,  their  baby  came,  no  northern  benedi6l 
could  have  been  more  proudly  happy. 

Watching  him  playing  with  the  child,  Bachelder 
would  wonder  if  his  union  also  would  terminate  like 
all  the  others  of  his  long  experience.  In  her,  for  it 
was  a  girl  baby,  Paul's  fairness  worked  out,  as  she 
grew,  in  marvelous  delicacies  of  cream  and  rose, 
weaving,  moreover,  a  golden  woof  through  the  brown 
of  her  hair.  From  her  mother  she  took  a  lithe  per 
fection  of  form.  At  two  she  was  well  started  for  a 
raving  beauty,  and  as  much  through  his  love  for  her 
as  for  Andrea,  Paul  had  come,  like  Bachelder,  to 
swear  by  the  Tewana  women. 

He  might  have  been  swearing  by  them  yet,  but 
his  company's  business  suddenly  called  him  north, 
and  no  man  could  have  bidden  a  white  wife  more 
affectionate  farewell  or  have  been  more  sure  of  his 
own  return.  "It  is  a  comfort  to  know  that  your 
woman  won't  go  gadding  while  you  are  away,  and 
that  is  more  than  a  fellow  can  make  sure  of  at  home." 
These  were  his  last  words  to  Bachelder. 

He  was  to  be  absent  two  months,  but  after  he  had 
reported  adversely  on  a  mine  in  Sonora,  he  was  or 
dered  to  expert  a  group  in  far  Guerrera,  where  the 
mountains  turn  on  edge  and  earth  tosses  in  horrible 

352 


tumult.  Then  came  a  third  order  to  report  in  New 
York  for  personal  conference.  Thus  the  months  did 
sums  in  simple  addition  while  Andrea  waited,  serenely 
confident  of  his  return.  Not  that  she  lacked  ex 
perience  of  deserted  wives,  or  based  hope  on  her  own 
attractions.  Her  furious  mother  love  simply  could 
not  form,  much  less  harbor,  the  possibility  of  Paul's 
deserting  their  pretty  Lola. 

And,  barring  her  loneliness,  the  year  was  kind  to 
her,  feeding  her  mother  love  with  small  social 
triumphs.  For  one,  Lola  was  chosen  to  sit  with  three 
other  tots,  the  most  beautiful  of  Tewana's  children, 
at  the  feet  of  the  Virgin  in  the  Theophany  of  the 
"Black  Christ"  at  the  eastern  fiesta.  From  morning 
to  mirk  midnight,  it  was  a  hard  vigil.  By  day  the 
vaulted  church  reeked  incense;  by  night  a  thousand 
candles  guttered  under  the  dark  arches,  sorely 
afflicting  small,  weary  eyelids;  yet  Lola  sat  it  out 
like  a  small  thoroughbred,  earning  thereby  the 
priest's  kindly  pat  and  her  mother's  devoted  worship. 

Then,  on  her  third  saint  day,  the  small  girl  donned 
her  first  fiesta  costume,  a  miniature  of  the  heirlooms 
which  descend  from  mother  to  daughter,  each  gen 
eration  striving  to  increase  the  magnificence  of  the 
costume  just  as  it  strove  to  add  to  the  gold  pieces  in 
the  chain  which  did  triple  duty  as  hoard,  dowry  and 
necklace.  Andrea  subtracted  several  English  sov 
ereigns  from  her  own  to  start  Lola's,  and,  with  the 
American  gold  eagle,  the  gift  of  Bachelder,  her 
padrino,  godfather,  they  made  an  affluent  beginning 
for  so  small  a  girl.  As  for  the  costume?  Its  silk, 
plush,  velours,  were  worked  by  Andrea's  clever 
fingers  curiously  and  wondrously,  even  when  judged 

353 


by  difficult  Tewana  standards.  Bachelder  painted 
the  small  thing,  kneeling  by  her  mother's  side  before 
the  great  gold  altar.  Her  starched  skirt,  with  its 
band  of  red  velours,  stands  of  itself  leveling  her  head, 
so  that  she  looks  for  all  the  world  like  a  serious  cherub 
peering  out  from  a  wonderfully  embroidered  bath- 
cabinet.  But  ah!  the  serious  devotion  of  the  faces! 
The  muse  Bachelder  had  followed  so  faithfully  was 
hovering  closely  when  his  soul  flamed  out  upon  that 
canvas.  It  ranks  with  his  "Enganchada."  Either 
would  bring  him  fame,  yet  they  rest,  face  to  face,  in 
a  dusty  locker,  awaiting  the  day  when  time  or  death 
shall  cure  the  ache  that  a  glimpse  of  either  brings 
him. 

Two  months  after  that  canvas  was  put  away, 
eighteen  counting  from  the  day  of  his  departure, 
Bachelder  walked,  one  day,  down  to  the  primitive 
post-office  to  see  if  the  mail  that  was  due  from  the 
little  fishing  port  of  Salina  Cruz  contained  aught 
for  him.  Waded  would  better  describe  his  progress, 
for  it  was  the  middle  of  the  rains;  water  filled  the  air, 
dropping  in  sheets  from  a  livid  sky;  the  streets  were 
rivers  running  full  over  the  cobble  curbs.  Such  white 
planters  as  came  in  occasionally  from  the  jungle 
country  had  been  housefast  upon  their  plantations 
for  this  month,  and,  having  the  town  pretty  much 
to  himself,  the  artist's  thought  turned  naturally  to 
Paul,  who  used  to  bring  doubtful  mitigation  to  his 
isolation. 

He  had  written  the  artist  twice,  but  now  six  months 
had  elapsed  since  the  last  letter.  "He'll  never  come 
back,"  the  artist  muttered.  "Poor  Andrea!  But  it 
is  better — now." 

354 


Warm  with  the  pity  the  thought  inspired,  he  turned 
the  corner  into  the  street  that  led  to  the  post-office, 
and  was  almost  run  down  by  the  first  mule  of  a  train 
that  came  driving  through  the  rain. 

"Bachelder!"  the  rider  cried. 

It  was  surely  Paul.  Pulling  up  his  beast,  he  thrust 
a  wet  hand  from  under  his  rain  poncha,  then,  turn 
ing  in  his  saddle,  he  spoke  to  the  woman  who  rode 
behind  him,  "Ethel,  this  is  Mr.  Bachelder." 

The  alternative  had  happened!  As  a  small  hand 
thrust  back  the  hood  of  mackintosh,  Bachelder  found 
himself  staring  at  a  sweet  face,  while  an  equally  sweet 
greeting  was  drowned  by  echoing  questions  in  his 
mind.  "Good  God!"  he  first  thought.  "Why  did 
he  bring  her  here  ?"  And  upon  that  immediately  fol 
lowed,  "How  ever  did  he  get  her?" 

An  evening  spent  with  the  pair  at  the  small  Mex 
ican  hotel  increased  his  wonder.  Pleasant,  pretty,  of 
a  fine  sensibility  and  intellectual  without  loss  of  fem 
ininity,  the  girl  would  have  been  fitly  mated  with  a 
man  of  the  finest  clay.  How  could  she  have  married 
Paul  ?  Bachelder  thought,  and  correctly,  that  he 
discerned  the  reason  in  a  certain  warmth  of  romantic 
feeling  that  tinged  her  speech  and  manner.  Daughter 
of  an  Episcopal  clergyman  in  Paul's  native  town,  she 
had  sighed  for  something  different  from  the  hum 
drum  of  small  teas,  dinners,  parochial  calls,  and  when 
Paul  came  to  her  with  the  glamour  of  tropical  travel 
upon  him,  she  married,  mistaking  the  glamour  for  him. 

"She  loved  me  for  the  dangers  I  had  passed!"  the 
artist  mused,  quoting  Shakespeare,  on  his  way  home. 
"  What  a  tragedy  when  she  discovers  him  for  a  spur 
ious  Othello!" 

355 


The  Spinners'  Book  of  Fiction 


Dropping  into  the  studio  next  morning,  Paul  an 
swered  the  other  question.  "Why  not?"  he  asked, 
with  a  touch  of  ancestral  stolidity.  "My  work  is 
here.  Andrea?"  His  next  words  plainly  revealed 
that  while  his  moral  plating  had  cracked  and  peeled 
under  tropical  heat,  the  iron  convention  beneath  had 
held  without  fracture.  He  began:  "It  was  a  beastli 
ness  that  we  committed " 

"That  you  committed,"  Bachelder  sharply  cor 
rected.  "And  what  of  the  child?" 

Blinking  in  the  old  fashion,  Paul  went  on,  "I  was 
coming  to  that.  She  cannot  be  allowed  to  grow  up  a 
little  Mexican.  I  shall  adopt  her  and  have  her  prop 
erly  educated."  Here  he  looked  at  Bachelder  as 
though  expecting  commendation  for  his  honorable 
intention,  and,  receiving  none,  went  on,  dilating  on 
his  plans  for  the  child  as  if  resolved  to  earn  it.  Yet, 
setting  aside  this  patent  motive,  it  was  easy  to  see 
as  he  warmed  to  his  sub j eel:  that  Andrea  had  not 
erred  in  counting  on  Lola  to  bring  him  back.  With 
her  beauty  she  would  do  any  man  proud !  The  whole 
United  States  would  not  be  able  to  produce  her  rival ! 
She  should  have  the  best  that  money  could  give  her! 

Wondering  at  the  curious  mixture  of  class  egotism, 
paternal  tenderness  and  twisted  morality,  Bachelder 
listened  to  the  end,  then  said,  "Of  course,  Mrs. 
Steiner  approves  of  a  ready-made  family?" 

Paul's  proud  feathers  draggled  a  little,  and  he  red 
dened.  "Well — you  see — she  thinks  Lola  is  the 
daughter  of  a  dead  mining  friend.  Some  day,  of 
course,  I'll  tell  her.  In  fa6l,  the  knowledge  will  grow 
on  her.  But  not  now.  It  wouldn't  do.  She  couldn't 
understand." 

356 


"  No  ?  "  But  the  quiet  sarcasm  was  wasted  on  Paul, 
and  the  artist  continued,  "Aren't  you  leaving  Andrea 
out  of  your  calculations?" 

Paul  ruffled  like  an  angry  gobbler.  His  eyes  took  on 
an  ugly  gleam,  his  jaw  stuck  out,  his  expression  in 
carnated  Teutonic  obstinacy.  "Oh,  she'll  have  to 
be  fixed.  Luckily  it  doesn't  take  much  to  buy  these 
savage  women;  their  feelings  are  all  on  the  surface. 
I'll  give  her  the  house,  furniture,  and  a  hundred  dol 
lars  cash.  That  should  make  up  for  the  loss  of — 

" a  husband?"  Bachelder's  face  darkened. 

Throughout  the  conversation  he  had  worn  an  air  of 
suppression,  as  though  holding,  by  an  effort,  some 
thing  back.  Now  he  straightened  with  a  movement 
that  was  analogous  to  the  flexure  of  a  coiled  spring. 
His  lips  opened,  closed  again,  and  he  went  on  with 
his  quiet  questioning.  "For  a  husband,  yes.  They 
are  easy  stock  to  come  by.  But  not  for  the  child  of 
her  labor.  Supposing  she  refuses?" 

Paul's  eyes  glinted  under  his  frown.  "Then  the 
Jefe-Politico  earns  the  hundred  dollars  and  the  law 
gives  her  to  me." 

The  spring  uncoiled.  "Never!  She  died  a  month 
ago  of  yellow  fever." 

Under  Teuton  phlegm  lies  an  hysteria  that  rivals 
that  of  the  Latin  races.  Paul's  flame  died  to  ashes 
and  he  burst  out  sobbing,  throwing  his  hands  up  and 
out  with  ungainly  gestures.  Looking  down  upon  his 
awkward  grief,  Bachelder  half  regretted  the  just 
anger  that  caused  him  to  slip  the  news  like  a  lightning 
bolt;  he  would  have  felt  sorrier  but  that  he  perceived 
Paul's  sorrow  rooted  in  the  same  colossal  egotism 
that  would  have  sacrificed  the  mother  on  the  altars 

357 


TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


of  its  vast  conceit.  He  knew  that  Paul  was  grieving 
for  himself,  for  lost  sensations  of  pride,  love  and 
pleasure  that  he  could  never  experience  again.  When 
the  ludicrous  travesty  had  partly  spent  itself,  he 
stemmed  the  tide  with  a  question. 

"If  you  don't  care  to  see  Andrea,  I  can  make  the 
settlements  you  hinted  at." 

Paul  glanced  up,  stupidly  resentful,  through  his 
tears.  "The  child  is  dead.  That  is  all  off." 

"You  will  do  nothing  for  her?"  As  much  to  prop 
an  opinion  of  human  nature  that  was  already  too  low 
for  comfort  as  in  Andrea's  interest,  Bachelder  asked 
the  question. 

"She  has  the  house  furnishings,"  Paul  sullenly 
answered.  "That  leaves  her  a  sight  better  off  than 
she  was  before  she  knew  me." 

Rising,  the  artist  walked  over  to  the  window.  "  The 
river  is  rising,"  he  said,  when  he  could  trust  himself 
to  speak.  "Another  foot,  and  away  goes  the  bridge. 
When  do  you  go  to  the  mine  ?" 

"Tomorrow." 

"Mrs.  Steiner  goes  with  you?" 

"No,  too  wet." 

Bachelder  hesitated.  "I'd  offer  you  my  quarters, 
but — yOU  See  I  am  neither  married  nor  unmarried." 

"  No ! "  Paul  agreed  with  ponderous  respe lability. 
"It  would  never  do.  Besides,  I've  hired  a  house  of  the 
Jefe-Politico;  the  one  that  crowns  the  Promontory. 
When  the  rain  slacks  we'll  move  out  to  the  mine."j 

"There  is  one  thing  I  should  like,"  he  added  as  he 
rose  to  go.  "If  you  would  have  a  stone  put  over  the 
child's  grave — something  nice — you're  a  better  judge 
than  me, — I'll " 

358 


The  Tewana 


"Too  late,"  the  artist  interrupted.  "Andrea  broke 
up  her  necklace;  put  savings  of  eighteen  genera 
tions  into  the  finest  tomb  in  the  cemetery."  He 
looked  curiously  at  Paul,  but  his  was  that  small 
order  of  mind  which  persistently  fixes  responsibility 
for  the  most  inevitable  calamity  upon  some  person. 
To  the  day  of  his  death  he  would  go  on  taxing  the 
child's  death  against  Andrea;  he  did  not  even  com 
ment  on  this  last  proof  of  her  devoted  love. 

After  he  was  gone,  Bachelder  returned  to  his  win 
dow,  just  in  time  to  see  the  bridge  go.  A  thin  stream 
in  summer,  meandering  aimlessly  between  wide 
banks,  the  river  now  ran  a  full  half-mile  wide,  splitting 
the  town  with  its  yeasty  race.  An  annual  occurrence, 
this  was  a  matter  of  small  moment  to  the  severed 
halves.  Each  would  pursue  the  even  tenor  of  its 
way  till  the  slack  of  the  rains  permitted  communi 
cation  by  canoe  and  the  rebuilding  of  the  bridge. 
But  it  had  special  significance  now  in  that  Andrea 
lived  on  the  other  bank. 

He  wondered  if  the  news  of  Paul's  return  had 
crossed,  muttering:  "Poor  girl,  poor  girl!"  Adding, 
a  moment  later:  "But  happier  than  the  other.  Poor 
little  Desdemona!" 

How  melancholy  is  the  voice  of  a  flood!  Its  re 
surgent  dirge  will  move  a  new-born  babe  to  frightened 
wailing,  and  stirs  in  strong  men  a  vague  uneasiness 
that  roots  in  the  vast  and  calamitous  experience  of 
the  race.  Call  of  hungry  waters,  patter  of  driving 
rain,  sough  of  the  weird  wind,  it  requires  good  com 
pany  and  a  red-coal  fire  to  offset  their  meanings  of 
eternity.  Yet  though  the  fireless  tropics  could  not 

359 


TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


supply  one,  and  she  lacked  the  other,  the  storm 
voices  were  hardly  responsible  for  Ethel  Steiner's 
sadness  the  third  morning  after  her  arrival. 

Neither  was  it  due  to  the  fa6l  that  Paul  had  failed 
to  come  in  the  preceding  night  from  the  mine.  Seem 
ing  relieved  rather  than  distressed,  she  had  gone 
quietly  to  bed.  No,  it  was  neither  the  storm,  his 
absence,  nor  any  of  the  small  miseries  that  affli6l 
young  wives.  Poor  Desdemona!  The  curtain  was 
rising  early  on  the  tragedy  which  Bachelder  foresaw. 
Already  the  glamour  was  falling  from  Paul  to  the 
tropics,  where  it  rightfully  belonged;  this  morning 
she  was  living  her  bitter  hour,  fighting  down  the  pre 
monition  of  a  fatal  mistake. 

What  with  her  thoughtful  pauses,  she  made  but  a 
slow  toilet,  and  when  the  last  rebellious  curl  had  been 
coaxed  to  its  place  behind  her  small  ear,  she  turned, 
sighing,  to  the  window.  One  glance,  and  she  started 
back,  pale,  clutching  her  hands.  A  rocky  snout, 
thrusting  far  out  into  the  belly  of  the  river's  great 
bow,  the  Promontory  stood  high  above  the  ordi 
nary  flood  level.  Once,  in  far-away  Aztec  times,  a 
Tewana  tradition  had  it  that  a  cloudburst  in  the 
rains  had  swept  it  clear  of  houses,  and  now  Time's 
slow  cycle  had  brought  the  same  deadly  coincidence. 
Where,  last  night,  a  hundred  lights  had  flickered 
below  her  windows,  a  boil  of  yellow  waters  spread, 
cutting  off  her  house,  the  last  and  highest,  from  the 
mainland.  Black  storm  had  drowned  the  cries  of 
fleeing  householders.  The  flood's  mighty  voice, 
bellowing  angrily  for  more  victims  as  it  swallowed 
house  after  house,  had  projected  but  a  faint  echo  into 
her  dreams.  Now,  however,  she  remembered  that 

360 


The  Tewana 


Carmencita,  her  new  maid,  had  failed  to  bring  in 
the  morning  coffee. 

Wringing  her  hands  and  loudly  lamenting  the 
deadly  fear  that  made  her  forget  her  mistress,  Car 
mencita,  poor  girl,  was  in  the  crowd  that  was  helping 
Paul  and  Bachelder  to  launch  a  freight  canoe.  When 
Paul — who  had  ridden  in  early  from  the  little  village, 
where  he  had  been  storm-stayed — had  tried  to 
impress  a  crew,  the  peon  boatman  had  sworn  volubly 
that  no  pole  would  touch  bottom  and  that  one  might 
as  well  try  to  paddle  the  town  as  a  heavy  canoe 
against  such  a  flood.  But  when  Bachelder  stepped 
in  and  manned  the  big  sweep,  a  half-dozen  followed. 
Notwithstanding,  their  river  wisdom  proved.  Pad 
dling  desperately,  they  gained  no  nearer  than  fifty 
yards  to  the  pale  face  at  the  window. 

"Don't  be  afraid!"  Bachelder  shouted,  as  they 
swept  by.  "We'll  get  you  next  time!" 

If  the  walls  did  not  melt?  Already  the  flood  was 
licking  with  hungry  tongues  the  adobe  bricks  where 
the  plaster  had  bulged  and  fallen,  and  an  hour  would 
fly  while  they  made  a  landing  and  dragged  the  canoe 
back  for  another  cast.  The  boatmen  knew!  Their 
faces  expressed,  anticipated  that  which  happened  as 
they  made  the  landing  half  a  mile  below.  Paul  saw 
it  first.  Through  the  swift  passage  he  sat,  facing 
astern,  helplessly  clutching  the  gunwale,  and  his  cry, 
raucous  as  that  of  a  maimed  animal,  signaled  the 
fall  of  the  house.  Sobbing,  he  collapsed  on  the  bank. 

Bachelder  looked  down  upon  him.  Momentarily 
stunned,  his  thought  returned  along  with  a  feeling  of 
relief  that  would  have  framed  itself  thus  in  words: 
"Poor  Desdemona!  Now  she  will  never  know!" 

361 


"  Senor!  Senor!  Mira!"  A  boatman  touched  his 
shoulder. 

Two  heads  were  swirling  down  the  flood,  a  light 
and  a  dark.  Bachelder  instantly  knew  Ethel,  but,  as 
yet,  he  could  not  make  out  the  strong  swimmer  who 
was  at  such  infinite  pains  to  hold  the  fair  head  above 
water.  Though,  time  and  again,  the  dark  head  went 
under  for  smotheringly  long  intervals,  Ethel's  never 
once  dipped,  and,  up  or  down,  the  swimmer  battled 
fiercely,  angling  across  the  flood.  She — for  long  hair 
stamped  her  a  woman — gained  seventy  yards  shore 
ward  while  floating  down  two  hundred.  Three 
hundred  gave  her  another  fifty.  So,  rising  and  sink 
ing,  she  drifted  with  her  burden  down  upon  Paul  and 
Bachelder.  At  fifty  yards  the  artist  caught  a  glimpse 
of  her  face,  but  not  till  she  was  almost  under  their 
hands  did  Paul  recognize  the  swimmer. 

"Andrea!"  he  shouted. 

Reassured  by  Bachelder 's  cheery  shout,  Ethel  had 
busied  herself  collecting  her  watch  and  other  trinkets 
from  the  bureau  till  a  smacking  of  wet  feet  caused  her 
to  turn,  startled.  A  woman  stood  in  the  door,  a 
woman  of  matchless  amplitudes,  such  as  of  old 
tempted  the  gods  from  heaven.  Stark  naked,  save 
for  the  black  cloud  that  dripped  below  her  waist,  her 
bronze  beauty  was  framed  by  the  ponderous  arch. 

"I  don't  know  who  you  are,"  Ethel  said,  recover 
ing,  "but  you  are  very  beautiful,  and,  under  the  cir 
cumstances,  welcome.  Under  ordinary  conditions, 
your  advent  would  have  been  a  trifle  embarrassing. 
I  must  find  you  a  shawl  before  the  canoes  come. 
Here,  take  this  blanket." 

362 


She  little  imagined  how  embarrassing  the  visita 
tion  might  have  proved  under  very  ordinary  con 
ditions.  Though  the  news  of  Paul's  return  did  cross 
before  the  bridge  was  carried  away,  Andrea  did  not 
hear  it  till  that  morning,  and  she  would  never  have 
had  it  from  a  Tewana  neighbor.  They  pitied  the 
bereavement  to  which  widowhood  in  the  most  cruel 
of  forms  was  now  added.  But  among  them  she  un 
fortunately  counted  a  peon  woman  of  the  upper 
Mexican  plateau,  one  of  the  class  which  took  from 
the  Conquest  only  Spanish  viciousness  to  add  to 
Aztec  cruelty.  Jealous  of  Andrea's  luck — as  they 
had  deemed  it — in  marriage,  Pancha  had  thirsted  for 
the  opportunity  which  came  as  they  drew  water  to 
gether  that  morning  from  the  brink  of  the  flood. 

"'Tis  the  luck  of  us  all!"  she  exclaimed,  malevo 
lently  ornamenting  her  evil  tidings.  "They  take 
their  pleasure  of  us,  these  Gringos,  then  when  the 
hide  wrinkles,  ho  for  a  prettier!  They  say  Tewana 
hath  not  such  another  as  his  new  flame,  and  thy  house 
is  a  hovel  to  that  he  fits  up  for  her  on  the  Promontory." 

Here  the  hag  paused,  for  two  good  reasons.  That 
the  barbed  shaft  might  sink  deep  and  rankle  from 
Andrea's  belief  that  her  supplanter  was  a  girl  of  her 
tribe,  but  principally  because,  just  then,  she  went 
down  under  the  ruins  of  her  own  olla.  A  fighter, 
after  her  kind,  with  many  a  cutting  to  her  credit, 
she  cowered  like  a  snarling  she-wolf  among  the  sharp 
potsherds  cowed  by  the  enormous  anger  she  had  pro 
voked;  lay  and  watched  while  the  tall  beauty  ripped 
shawl,  slip  and  skirt  from  her  magnificent  limbs, 
then  turned  and  plunged  into  the  flood.  Pancha 
rose  and  shook  her  black  fist,  hurling  curses  after. 

363 


TheSpinnerBook  of  Fiction 


"May  the  alligators  caress  thy  limbs,  the  fishes 
pluck  thine  eyes,  the  wolves  crack  thy  bleached  bones 
on  the  strand." 

That  was  the  lightest  of  them,  but,  unheeding, 
Andrea  swam  on.  As  her  own  house  stood  in  the 
extreme  skirt  of  the  town,  the  Promontory  lay  more 
than  a  mile  below,  but  she  could  see  neither  it  nor 
the  night's  devastation  because  of  the  river's  bend. 
Because  of  the  same  bend,  she  had  the  aid  of  the 
current,  which  set  strongly  over  to  the  other  shore, 
but  apart  from  this  the  river  was  one  great  danger. 
Floating  logs,  huge  trees,  acres  of  tangled  greenery, 
the  sweepings  of  a  hundred  miles  of  jungle,  covered 
its  surface  with  other  and  ghastlier  trove.  Here  the 
saurians  of  Pancha's  curse  worried  a  drowned  pig, 
there  they  fought  over  a  cow's  swollen  carcass;  yet 
because  of  carrion  taste  or  food  plethora,  they  let 
her  by.  There  an  enormous  saber,  long  and  thick 
as  a  church,  turned  and  tumbled,  threshing  air  and 
water  with  enormous  spreading  branches,  creating 
dangerous  swirls  and  eddies.  These  she  avoided, 
and,  having  swum  the  river  at  ebb  and  flood  every 
day  of  her  life  from  a  child,  she  now  easily  clove  its 
roar  and  tumble;  swam  on,  her  heat  unabated  by  the 
water's  chill,  till,  sweeping  around  the  bend,  she 
sighted  the  lone  house  on  the  Promontory. 

That  gave  her  pause.  Had  death,  then,  robbed 
her  anger?  The  thought  broke  the  spring  of  her 
magnificent  energy.  Feeling  at  last  the  touch  of 
fatigue,  she  steered  straight  for  the  building  and 
climbed  in,  to  rest,  at  a  lower  window,  without  a 
thought  of  its  being  occupied  till  Ethel  moved  above. 

Who  shall  divine  her  thoughts  as,  standing  there 

364 


in  the  door,  she  gazed  upon  her  rival  ?  Did  she  not 
recognize  her  as  such,  or  was  she  moved  by  the  touch 
of  sorrow,  aftermath  of  the  morning's  bitterness, 
that  still  lingered  on  the  young  wife's  face  ?  Events 
seemed  to  predicate  the  former,  but,  be  that  as  it 
may,  the  eyes  which  grief  and  despair  had  heated 
till  they  flamed  like  small  crucibles  of  molten  gold, 
now  cooled  to  their  usual  soft  brown;  smiling,  she 
refused  the  proffered  blanket. 

"  Ven  tul  Ven  tu!"  she  exclaimed,  beckoning.  Her 
urgent  accent  and  gesture  carried  her  meaning,  and 
without  question  Ethel  followed  down  to  a  lower 
window. 

"But  the  canoe?"  she  objected,  when  Andrea 
motioned  for  her  to  disrobe.  "It  will  soon  be  here!" 

"  Canoa  ?"  From  the  one  word  Andrea  caught  her 
meaning.  "No  hay  tiempo.  Mira!" 

Leaning  out,  Ethel  looked  and  shrank  back,  her 
inexperience  convinced  by  a  single  glance  at  the  wall. 
She  assisted  the  strong  hands  to  rip  away  her  en 
cumbering  skirts.  It  took  only  a  short  half -minute, 
and  with  that  afforded  time  for  a  small  femininity  to 
come  into  play.  Placing  her  own  shapely  arm 
against  Ethel's,  Andrea  murmured  soft  admiration 
at  the  other's  marvelous  whiteness.  But  it  was  done 
in  a  breath.  Slipping  an  arm  about  Ethel's  waist, 
Andrea  jumped  with  her  from  the  window,  one  minute 
before  the  soaked  walls  collapsed. 

If  Ethel's  head  had  remained  above,  she  might  have 
retained  her  presence  of  mind,  and  so  have  made 
things  easier  for  her  saviour,  but,  not  supposing  that 
the  whole  world  contained  a  mature  woman  who 
could  not  swim,  Andrea  loosed  her  as  they  took  the 

365 


Q/'  Fiction 


water.  A  quick  dive  partially  amended  the  error, 
retrieving  Ethel,  but  not  her  composure.  Coming  up, 
half-choked,  she  grappled  Andrea,  and  the  two  went 
down  together.  The  Tewana  could  easily  have 
broken  the  white  girl's  grip  and — have  lost  her.  In 
stead,  she  held  her  breath  and  presently  brought  her 
senseless  burden  to  the  surface. 

Of  itself,  the  struggle  was  but  a  small  thing  to  her 
strength,  but  coming  on  top  of  the  long  swim  under 
the  shock  and  play  of  emotion,  it  left  her  well  nigh 
spent.  Yet  she  struggled  shoreward,  battling,  wag 
ing  the  war  of  the  primal  creature  that  yields  not  till 
Death  himself  reenforces  bitter  odds. 

To  this  exhaustion,  the  tales  that  float  in  Tehuante- 
pec  lay  her  end,  and  Bachelder  has  never  taken  time 
to  contradict  them.  But  as  she  floated  almost  within 
reach  of  his  hand,  she  steadied  at  Paul's  shout  as 
under  an  accession  of  sudden  strength,  and  looked  at 
her  erstwhile  husband.  Then,  if  never  before,  she 
knew — him,  as  well  as  his  works!  From  him  her 
glance  flashed  to  the  fair  face  at  her  shoulder.  What 
power  of  divination  possessed  her  ?  Or  was  it  Bach- 
elder's  fancy?  He  swears  to  the  chosen  few,  the 
few  who  understand,  that  her  face  lit  with  the  same 
glory  of  tender  pity  that  she  held  over  her  sick  child. 
Then,  before  they  could  reach  her,  she  shot  suddenly 
up  till  her  bust  gleamed  wet  to  the  waist,  turned,  and 
dived,  carrying  down  the  senseless  bride. 

Shouting,  Bachelder  also  dived — in  vain.  In  vain, 
the  dives  of  his  men.  Death,  that  mighty  potentate, 
loves  sweetness  full  well  as  a  shining  mark.  Swiftly, 
silently,  a  deep  current  bore  them  far  out  on  the 
flooded  lands  and  there  scoured  a  sepulcher  safe 

366 


from  saurian  teeth,  beyond  the  scope  of  Pancha's 
curse.  Later,  the  jungle  flowed  in  after  the  receding 
waters  and  wreathed  over  the  twin  grave  morning- 
glories  pure  as  the  white  wife,  glorious  orchids  rich 
as  Andrea's  bronze. 


367 


HERE  ENDS  THE  SPINNERS'  BOOK  OF  FICTION 
BEING  SHORT  STORIES  BY  CALIFORNIA  WRITERS 
COMPILED  BY  THE  BOOK  COMMITTEE  OF  THE 
SPINNERS'  CLUB  FOR  THE  SPINNERS'  BENEFIT 
FUND  INA  D.  COOLBRITH  FIRST  BENEFICIARY 
ILLUSTRATED  BY  VARIOUS  WESTERN  ARTISTS 
THE  DECORATIONS  BY  SPENCER  WRIGHT  THE 
TYPOGRAPHY  DESIGNED  BY  J.  H.  NASH  PUB 
LISHED  BY  PAUL  ELDER  AND  COMPANY  AND 
PRINTED  FOR  THEM  AT  THE  TOMOYE  PRESS 
NEW  YORK  NINETEEN  HUNDRED  AND  SEVEN 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


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WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
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DAY  AND  TO  S1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


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DEC   19 


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«B  21 196781 


LOAN  DEPT 


t^A^    tibe 


LD  21-100m-12,'43  (8796s) 


Y.C  1 05468 


U.C.BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


M94381 


t^&fE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


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